Academic Freedom: In Justification of a Universal Ideal Terence Karran Centre for Educational Research and Development, University of Lincoln, LN6 7TS UK. Email: tkarran@lincoln.ac.uk [This is an electronic version of an article published in the journal Studies in Higher Education ‘Academic Freedom: In Defence of a Universal Ideal’ Studies in Higher Education, Vol. 34, No. 2. Studies in Higher Education is available online at: http://www.informaworld.com] BIOGRAPHICAL NOTE: Dr Terence Karran works in Centre for Educational Research and Development, at the University of Lincoln, in the U.K. He is also a Docent Professor in the Faculty of Education at the University of Oulu in Finland. From 2005 to 2007, he was a Visiting Professor at the Universidad Autónoma de Guadalajara in México, and Director of the Distance Learning Centre and the Mexican National Co-Ordination Centre for the World Bank Institute’s Global Development Learning Network for Latin America and the Caribbean.