The authorities at St. Petersburg State University issued a statement last week announcing that researchers in the humanities and social sciences would not be required to submit to an export-control screening before publishing their work overseas, easing fears that new procedures would constrain academic freedom.

Professors at the prestigious Russian university raised objections in early October, when an internal university document was posted on a popular Internet forum. The document called for faculty members to provide copies of texts to be published abroad so that they could be reviewed for violations of intellectual property law or danger to national security.

Some professors responded with alarm, warning that bureaucratic barriers could hamper their efforts to publish and travel abroad, and fearing the requirement was a step toward greater academic censorship.

A statement released by the university on Friday explained that the export-control procedures applied only to research involving “dual-use technology,” nonmilitary techniques that could have military applications. Russia’s export-control law, passed in 1999, was intended to stem the flow of strategic research out of the country during the chaotic decade after the fall of Communism.

Olga V. Moskaleva, head of the university’s scientific research department, said in the statement that the order “will not in any sense create some ban or limitation on international travel, participation in international conferences or cooperative work with foreign scholars.”

The statement said “intense interest of the media” in the order “apparently stems from insufficient information about the real state of affairs.”

(www.eduwo.com, Jainlyn&Charlotte)