Academics are suffering palpitations from being told to not use certain words by the US government. They have signed a petition opposing the Trump administration. Clearly censorship is bad for democracy, lack of transparency is bad for democracy. Yet for decades, insidious outside interference, ideological dogmatism and a lack of transparency have infected the HE landscape, especially when it comes to funding. Until now Finnish academia has been silent.
Does anyone remember “Finlandisation” and Finns recoiling in horror at the use of the term? For years Finnish academics had been proclaiming the attributes of military non-alignment and many of them received funding to sanctify this Finnish foreign policy.
Some even received funds from the Eastern neighbour and when they got burnt it was all a misunderstanding. Timo Kivimäki was one such Finnish academic. He was my first doctoral supervisor at Helsinki University, and he was one of the few professional professors I have come across. But when he got caught taking brown envelopes in Denmark from Russian operatives, he was rewarded by being re-appointed by Helsinki University.
But the intrigues of the intelligence services on University campuses have been known for a long time. The UK has been and still is the playground for security dalliances. The Cambridge five have gone down in infamy. Do Finns really believe they have been immune from such pressures? You might want to check out the role of the Stasi in recruiting Finnish student “Kontaktpersons” during the Cold War.
2022 comes around and within a few months, the metamorphosis of Finland into a minor player in NATO was laid bare. At the forefront of propelling this transformation were the academic “experts” and descendants of an academic tradition that had previously been bestowing the attributes of neutrality. But somehow, they got a case of amnesia when they started espousing the virtues of military alignment when the Russians invaded Ukraine.
If you were an academic or basically anyone, who questioned NATO or Finland’s headlong rush into military armageddon at the time, you were persona non grata. Conversely, the funding streams opened if you had become a hawk and everything that was American was bathed in sunlight. I did not see the academic approbation then against the military-industrial complex and the use of American funds.
But reports in Uusi Suomi last month highlighted the lack of transparency when it came to funding research, especially USAID received by a Finnish academic researching security policy. Helsinki University reports two per cent of funding comes from the US Federal Government. The DOGE audits are just starting, and the Department of Defence is around the corner - follow the money.
Corruption has been endemic in the HE academic sector as the U4 Anti-Corruption Centre in Norway highlights. “Publish or perish” has been the epitaph on many careers. Link this to the funding streams available and the need to satisfy the demands of the sponsoring organisations becomes very powerful. But this has been going on for a very long time and certainly pre-dates the emergence of Trump.
For too long, academics have been cancelled because they question the religion of Diversity Equity Inclusion (DEI)/Sustainability. If you do not comply with the Orwellian newspeak of DEI /Sustainability the likelihood of getting funding has been zero. You can even get cancelled if you raise questions and the pathway of critical thinking is littered with academics who have dared to question the ideology now infecting University campuses. So much for inclusion and diversity of thinking.
But I do not seem to remember Finnish Universities decrying the intoxication of academia by these ideologies which have compromised so called “academic freedoms.”
Herein lies the crux of the matter. The US government’s attempts at censorship are clumsy and reflect an ideological determinism. But the lack of transparency, the questionable use and allocation of funds, the infection of academia by ideology, the interference by third parties and the academic censorship culture have been around for a very long time, certainly before Trump. Why has Finnish academia been relatively silent on these issues? Why is it suddenly imbued with a conscience? Has funding satiated the craving of activist academics wanting to impose their world views on others? Now, when they are faced with a different zeitgeist they recoil in indignation. Why are the University hierarchies invoking theoretical freedoms when they have presided over the very same censorship culture that they now accuse the Trump administration of? Talk about double standards.
Finland is ranked high using Transparency International’s index. What is disconcerting is that Finns actually believe the international indices are a reflection of reality. This might indicate indoctrination has replaced education. So when Heikki Holopainen Executive Director of the Council of Rectors of Finnish Universities (Unifi) stated in a recent Yle article: “any attempt to restrict the freedom of research or the autonomy of universities will not be accepted,” clearly he has forgotten that Finnish academia has only had these freedoms in theory.
For too long academics have been an extension of American foreign policy. Three words stand out – “Gain of Function” which highlights how America uses funding. But they are no different from any other country.
As I stated back in 2022 in a series of articles questioning Finland’s push for NATO membership, it was clear the country was going to enter a completely new game. Finland morphed from being the elite in non-alignment to a bit player in alliance politics.
The Americans are asking how their money is used and until now, many Universities have been silent about the source of funds, no questions asked, no ethics, only compliance and willing acceptance. What does this say about academia.
But not to worry, programmes like BARI set up between the US Dept of Defence and Finnish Universities show the future trajectory of funding and academia, that is if the Americans stay in NATO. Finnish researchers will continue to be mercenaries of fortune either for the foreign policy of another country, the servants of opaque ideologically oriented NGOs or the promotion of Finnish vested interests, especially in security. The difference now is that it might be in the service of the military-industrial complex, this is what happens when you join a military alliance – follow the money.
By Graham Wood
Graham Wood has been a lecturer at the University of Helsinki for over thirty years. He gained his Executive MBA from Aalto and his PhD from the Faculty of Social Sciences at Helsinki University where he researched conflict and collective violence. He is also a Fellow of the Higher Education Academy in the UK. Soon to be pensioner…
This is a "Viewpoint" opinion column. The views and opinions expressed in this article are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the views or position of The Helsinki Times. This column is not fact checked and HT is not be responsible for any possible inaccurate or incorrect statement in this article.
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