Blog post by Stephen Wyber
Today marks the first day of Denmark’s presidency of the Council of Ministers of the European Union. Over 6 months, Danes will drive the agenda through their role as chairs of meetings of Member States at official and ministerial levels.
In advance of this, the government has issued its overall plansacross the areas of work of the European Union. This article explores what is in there, starting with those elements directly focused on KR21 issues – research, education, and culture – and then initiatives in other areas which are nonetheless relevant.
Work in Progress: Advancing Existing Dossiers on Research
In the research space, following significant announcements during the first half of the year, the emphasis is primarily on maintaining momentum and helping turn proposals into reality.
The Start-Up and Scale-Up Strategy gets a specific call-out, as do ongoing plans around research and technology infrastructures. In both cases, there is a clear understanding of the importance of action, but also a need to maintain ambition and focus on taking a comprehensive approach that, in particular, supports the work of research institutions and their libraries.
Knowledge Rights 21 has underlined the importance of supporting research and innovation all the way from basic science to the market. The EU can best support start-ups by ensuring that it also enables the full research cycle, including through promoting the open licensing of research outputs, as well as favouring partnerships that serve public interest goals.
There are also plans to advance work to support the European biotech and life sciences sectors. These are, of course, welcome, but researchers here will also benefit from more cross-cutting, less discipline-specific reforms, for example, to facilitate cross-border cooperation and data access.
A potential area of risk is around artificial intelligence, where the two main references in the programme point in different directions. We can only urge the Presidency to ensure that the priority of supporting research and researchers remains at the centre of discussion.
Items which aren’t mentioned include the starting up of work to deliver on the new European Research Area Policy Agenda, as well as the planned European Innovation Act. Work will also continue towards defining the shape of the upcoming European Research Area Act. Across these, we hope that the Danish Presidency ensure that the Council maintains its record of strong support for work to ensure the freedom of circulation of knowledge.
Peer Pressure: Setting an Agenda on Education and Culture
The ability of the European Union to act around education and culture is significantly smaller than in the case of research, given that these remain ‘national’ competences. Nonetheless, it remains a useful space for sharing experience and establishing priorities which can in turn influence further work at the European and national level.
This is certainly the case around education, where advancing the revision of the European Education Area framework is on the agenda, alongside a new declaration on European Cooperation in vocational education and training.
Success in both areas will be more likely with favourable regulation of the way that knowledge is created, shared, accessed, and used. Possibilities to share and use materials across will help, as will better recognition of the role of informal and non-formal educational institutions, such as libraries, as beneficiaries of relevant copyright exceptions.
There is relatively little on culture specifically, outside of an emphasis on the broader social role of culture, but the Presidency does highlight the need to promote access to independent and reliable information for all.
The plan focuses primarily on the media sector, but it should not be forgotten that in libraries, Europe has a network of institutions dedicated to providing access to a far wider range of relevant materials. We encourage the Presidency to recognise and support this role.
Promoting Policy Coherence: The Research Angle in Wider Agendas
The ability of researchers, educators, learners, and readers to meet their goals is not just determined by traditionally defined research, education, and culture policies. Yet too often, the interests of people and institutions in these sectors are neglected.
The Danish Presidency places the simplification agenda right at the front of its plans, making the connection between this and wider competitiveness. Businesses, citizens, and authorities are already named as beneficiaries; we argue that research and education institutions and workers (and the libraries that support them) should also be explicitly recognised in this work.
In practical terms, we encourage the Presidency to ensure that the perspective of research and education sectors is systematically engaged and integrated in simplification efforts, ongoing reviews of the EU’s acquis, and any planned future laws.
Similarly, there is a strong priority for strengthening the Single Market. However, despite support at the highest level for a Fifth Freedom – the freedom of circulation of knowledge – we are still waiting for clear integration of knowledge into the wider Single Market agenda.
Overall, while there should be fewer major announcements in the next six months than there were in the previous, the Danish Presidency brings the potential to make valuable and meaningful contributions to delivering on the rights of access to research, education, and culture in a digital age.
As always, however, progress cannot be taken for granted, and we will continue to engage and share our research and insights in support of positive change.
1 July 2025
