Blog post by Stephen Wyber
While there may still be a few warm weeks ahead, most in Europe will be starting to prepare for temperatures to drop as we head towards the winter. However, even if it is getting colder outside, the next weeks and months will see key discussions around the rights to research, education and culture in the European Union intensify.
Below, we provide a short overview of the hottest topics coming up, and the opportunities open to the research, education, cultural rights and library fields.
A Law Fit For Research: The European Research Area Act (Response required by 10 September 2025!)
There are still a few days left to respond to the call for evidence for the European Research Area Act (Deadline 10 September 2025). This is the first formal step in a process that is intended to lead to draft legislation in the third quarter of 2026.
While the parallel discussions around the shape of research funding from 2027 will also be a priority, it is worth underlining how significant it is to have a commitment to pass legislation focused on research. This is an opportunityboth to correct some of the problems created by the side-effects of other existing EU laws and to advance measures that will enable researchers across the continent.
We strongly encourage anyone with an interest in ensuring that legislation works for the research sector to provide inputs to the EU’s consultation. To do this will need to register with the EU Portal, and the response may be no more than 4000 characters.
For Knowledge Rights 21, key opportunities include:
- Protections for researchers in discussions with publishers by granting a Secondary Publication Right (SPR);
- Ensuring favourable legal frameworks for rights retention;
- Enabling a more flexible copyright exception for research (including a strengthened text and data mining regime), and,
- Limitations on liabilities for educational / research institutions and safeguarding them from unfair contractual provisions.
Laying The Groundwork: The European Innovation Act (Open Until 3 October 2025)
In parallel, there is also a call for evidence on the European Innovation Act (deadline 3 October 2025). This is moving faster than the European Research Act and can help lay the ground by underlining the need to maximise access to publicly funded research and enabling research-industry collaborations. More broadly, we’re highlighting the need to ensure that the research sector enjoys at least the same—if not greater — opportunities for collaboration and activity across Europe as private sector actors.
Empowering Libraries: Fair Digital Markets And The Digital Fairness Act (Open Until 24 October 2025)
A far-reaching consequence of the shift from physical to digital has been that libraries’ ability to fulfil their missions depends heavily on whether they can secure contractual terms that allow this.
Just like individual consumers, they can face challenges around a lack of power in negotiations or of expertise. And beyond this, the expectations of the communities they serve as well as their legal mandates can further restrict their ability to bargain.
However, unlike individual consumers, they do not enjoy protection against unfair or one-sided contract terms. Similarly, unlike other jurisdictions, they have not been able to benefit from limitations on liabilities for activities they have undertaken in good faith.
Current competition law also fails to adequately support publicly funded education and research institutions. The impact of this is particularly clear when it comes to e-Books, with challenges around refusals to license, pricing, terms of use and more—ultimately, the ability of researchers, learners and readers to enjoy their own rights.
There is now an opportunity to make the case for extending protections to libraries as well as other research, education and cultural institutions with the consultation on the Digital Fairness Act. This is open until 24 October 2025, and we’ll be sharing ideas to help you think about how to respond shortly.
Safeguarding Progress: AI & Copyright (And Why Research Matters)
There are no signs of the debate about artificial intelligence cooling down, with the European Parliament’s Legal Affairs Committee preparing an own initiative report on Generative AI and copyright.
This work is likely to trigger efforts to further weaken the EU’s already restrictive provisions around machine learning for research. However, the debate around AI brings with it the risk of opening up wider questions around how much control rightholders have over subsequent uses of materials in general.
Meanwhile, although there are plenty of questions around how to ensure that AI works in ways that are safe, transparent, and respectful of privacy, copyright for the most part simply doesn’t provide an appropriate or effective way of doing this.
We’ll therefore continue to be watching this, as well as the first moves around the review of the Directive on Copyright in the Digital Single Market, due next year by 7 June 2026.
4 September 2025
