Academic freedom and the unknown: credibility, criticism, and inquiry among the professoriate
Marissa E. Yingling, Charlton W. Yingling
Humanities and Social Sciences Communications, Vol. 11
Summary
Follow-up to `yingling-2023-faculty-perceptions` by the same authors, examining the professional repercussions faculty perceive for conducting UAP research. Finds near-universal awareness of reputational risk — including concrete concerns about tenure, promotion, and grant funding — despite majority scientific curiosity about the topic. Published under Nature/Palgrave. Establishes that the barrier to academic UAP research is not lack of interest but structural professional disincentive, making the case that academic freedom norms must explicitly extend to stigmatized scientific topics.
Abstract
We investigate perceived threats to academic freedom among US university faculty who express interest in or have conducted research on unidentified aerial phenomena (UAP). Drawing on survey data and qualitative interviews, we find that faculty across disciplines widely perceive UAP research as professionally risky, with specific concerns about tenure decisions, promotion, grant eligibility, and collegial reputation. Despite these concerns, a majority of respondents affirmed that academic freedom principles should protect inquiry into stigmatized topics. We argue that the de facto exclusion of UAP from academic legitimacy represents a structural constraint on scientific inquiry, and that professional societies, tenure committees, and journal editors have a role in reducing the chilling effect on researchers who wish to engage with anomalous phenomena. This paper is a companion to our 2023 faculty perceptions survey.
Citation
Marissa E. Yingling, Charlton W. Yingling. (2024). Humanities and Social Sciences Communications. Vol. 11. DOI: 10.1057/s41599-024-03351-4
https://doi.org/10.1057/s41599-024-03351-4