The Balance Between Academic Freedom and Social Responsibility

Abstract

How to deal with the relationship between academic freedom and social responsibility is an important issue that China’s higher education has to face. We should handle the relationship between academic freedom and social responsibility as follows: clarify the relationship between academic freedom and social responsibility from the understanding of “necessity”; seek academic freedom in harmony with socialist core values; realize the two-way adaptation of academic freedom and social responsibility based on “practicality”; grasp the multi-dimension of academic freedom and the hierarchy of social responsibility; protect academic freedom and social responsibility with contract spirit. Only in this way, can we construct a harmonious balance between academic freedom and social responsibility.