The Ministry of Higher Education and Scientific Research highlighted a recent analytical report, based on data from the 2025 Academic Freedom Index (AFI), which shows that Iraq has made a remarkable leap in academic freedom levels, its score rose to 0.604 on a scale of 0 to 1, compared to 0.412 in 2024.
Higher Education reviewed the report (https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/academic-freedom-index), which is based on the 2026 Varieties of Democracy (V-Dem) project database, places Iraq in a leading position, ranking almost second among the Arab countries and regions included in the database, according to the index's central estimated value, as well as coming just behind Lebanon, with a very slight difference of only 0.014 points, significantly surpassing the Arab median of 0.240.
Directorate of Media and Government Communication
Ministry of Higher Education and Scientific Research
August 11, 2026
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