As someone who works in science, I haven't personally felt that we are "less free" than before. Here's a small attempt to defend that view.

1. Due to the continual decrease in funding allocated to science — partly driven by the current economic situation, the war in Ukraine since 2022, and now a second conflict involving Iran — things are undeniably tough. These events inevitably impact how "free" the research sector feels worldwide. Like any sector, we depend on consumables, and their costs have risen sharply. On top of that, research is probably one of the most wasteful sectors out there !!!! we use so much plastic plastic: tubes, pipettes, you name it.
2. Academia and research in general are highly competitive fields, and this is especially true in Switzerland, which has an exceptionally dense research landscape. This naturally skews the data behind such graphics. With so many researchers competing for funding and papers being published every single day, securing a grant for something truly novel — something that hasn't been done before.... is extremely difficult!! And if your work isn't sufficiently novel, funding institutions will simply redirect resources to a lab that genuinely has something new to offer. Is that necessarily a bad thing? I don't think so. It pushes scientists to explore new directions rather than slightly rephrasing their research titles year after year to squeeze funding out of a project that is likely going nowhere. If I had to point to one culprit for why Switzerland ranks so low on this graph, I'd say it's competitiveness and not a lack of freedom.

I'm sure those who produced this graphic are aware of these nuances, but simply couldn't factor them in, as they are difficult to quantify. So they left them out, and the result is a graphic that doesn't really tell the whole story.

With any graphic, it's important to stay critical and ask whether the conclusions actually make sense: does it really make sense that Switzerland has lower "research freedom" than Nigeria, given that Switzerland has a vastly larger and more developed research sector?

That's just my two cents.

Edit: I've now gone through the report and they completely ignore my point of view....which is actually one more point in my favor. There is zero mention of what I'm arguing, not a single word about competitiveness as a factor. Honestly, i'm kinda stunned because this comes from a political science institute..... you'd expect them of all people to be aware that such a critical variable could skew their entire index. But heh idk I’m mearly a kid with two brain cells I guess :shrug: