Blog post by Stephen Wyber
January 1st 2025 marks the beginning of the Polish Presidency of the Council of the EU.
Poland is a highly influential Member State, and its Prime Minister Donald Tusk is no stranger to Brussels – he was president of the European Council from 2014 to 2019 and President of the most powerful political group, the EPP, from 2019 to 2022. So there is no doubt that this is a presidency that knows how to influence the agenda of the rest of the mandate of the Commission and Parliament.
But will this be a Presidency that advances the research, innovation and scientific agenda?
Looking at their programme and (long) list of events planned for the next six months, we can glimpse where their efforts will go.
The Presidency defines “openness and synergy” as their guiding principles for research. Adding “we will underline the need to undertake actions of the inclusive nature, to stimulate new pan-European collaborative networks in research and innovation, the full exploitation of the EU’s potential and talents and the synergies between the different funding sources“
Mario Draghi and Enrico Letta in their reports, as well as many others, including Knowledge Rights 21, have talked again and again about the innovation paradox – despite high levels of public spending on research, Europe lags in innovation. In a way, the Polish Presidency gave part of the solution with those two words: openness and synergy. To be more precise, Europe needs more openness to enable synergies for research and innovation. Key to this openness is Letta’s fifth freedom, the freedom of knowledge, as a core element of a truly Single Market.
More thought should be given to policy coherence between the EU’s funding and wider legislative and regulatory agenda. A key moment to stress this will be in the upcoming Council Conclusions on the mid-term evaluation of the Horizon Europe Framework Programme. At 95.5 billion euros, Horizon Europe manages a large purse but we need the right policy framework to support research and innovation.
Another occasion to advance the interests of researchers will be in the context of the Council Recommendation on the European Research Area (ERA) Policy Agenda 2025-2027, which will be preceded by an event in February ERA Structural Policy – Unleashing the full R&I potential of Europe’s universities. This is an opportunity to continue the great work carried out under the previous ERA Policy Agenda 2022-2024.
The Polish programme also addresses copyright, particularly “the analysis of the impact of AI on copyright law.”
Artificial Intelligence has become the hottest topic in Brussels alongside competition. There isn’t a day without multiple events and articles on AI. Nonetheless, the interests of research, and how copyright affects this, are often a second thought when talking about AI. Even if Brussels suffers from Copyright Directive-induced PTSD, AI needs copyrighted materials to train its models and therefore, access for research needs to be maximised if we want Europe to become, in the words of Commission President von der Leyen, an “AI continent”.
The Presidency is planning council conclusions on the application of artificial intelligence in science, which will be coupled with a conference in March. The AI agenda also includes a two-day event Impact of Artificial Intelligence (AI) on Media and Creative Industries and Workshop on standards and harmonization efforts and the AI Act: advances in AI security assessment and governance although AI will surely be a central topic at other events such as the EU Innovation Journey’25 and the European Competition Day.
Finally, Poland’s presidency lands at a unique time in policymaking. We have the names of some highly promising policy initiatives, such as the European Research Area Act and the European Innovation Act but their contents still need to be clarified. The Presidency has the unique opportunity to lead the early stages of this discussion and change the picture of research and innovation in Europe.
In the interests of supporting openness and synergy, we hope that it will not miss the opportunity to do so.
Open Letter to the Polish Presidency
Building on the reflections above KR21 addressed the following open letter to the Polish Presidency.
Your excellency,
We are writing to you as the Knowledge Rights 21 campaign, which works to advance the interests of researchers, innovators, educators, learners, readers and the libraries that support them.
As the first full presidency under the new mandate of the European Commission and Parliament, Poland has a unique possibility to shape the agenda for the coming five years. In particular, you are first in line to build the response to the challenges and opportunities set out in the Letta and Draghi reports.
The Programme you have set out gives plenty of reasons for optimism.
We strongly welcome your emphasis on the importance of openness and synergies as the guiding themes of your work around research. Europe is a world leader in advancing open access and open science, and we trust that it will continue to be so under your presidency. In turn, this openness is the only way in which we can realise a true knowledge union, making the most of the insight and energy of researchers everywhere in Europe.
In this context, we look forward to the Council Conclusions on the European Research Area giving a central role to Open Science, and in this context, building on the exemplary work already started under the previous Policy Agenda on ensuring supportive legislative frameworks. This has underlined both the evidence of the need for reform and the widespread support for this, outside of some isolated voices. Now is the time to act.
Central to this will be steps to ensure synergies – not just between funding streams, but also between national and European legislative initiatives. First of all, it is time to overcome the fragmentation of national laws that affect research. We need to bring these up to date with the needs of researchers today, and making access to data and enabling cross-border collaboration the default.
We are also concerned that despite research representing a political and funding priority, not enough is being done to align the EU’s own legislation in other areas to this – in particular copyright and data. The inconsistencies undermine the impact of Horizon Europe and wider initiatives, notably in support of knowledge valorisation. We believe that the Conclusions on Horizon Europe should recognise the need for policy synergies as well as those between funding programmes.
The launching of work on a horizontal Single Market agenda, delivering on the call for a Fifth Freedom, is an important opportunity to make this happen. A comprehensive assessment of where the EU acquis (or the lack of it) is holding back the knowledge flows essential for research is long overdue, and could also serve to accelerate work to strengthen the European Education Area – another priority you have established. Similarly, we hope to see concrete action to ensure that the Better Regulation agenda works to support and enable research.
Ongoing work around artificial intelligence will offer a key test. Support for efforts to encourage the uptake of AI in science, as well as to advance AI research will be undermined if, in parallel, we make it harder to use legitimately accessed data for training. Europe must ensure that the interests of research and education are prioritised, and that regulation, where required, is designed to support these while addressing problems through a proportionate and risk-based approach.
Outside of research, we trust that the Presidency will take all opportunities to support access to knowledge and culture through libraries. We are concerned that the impact of efforts to maximise access to out-of-commerce works, through the provisions of the 2019 Directive on Copyright in the Digital Single Market, are not being realised. This calls for a more fundamental assessment of whether current market and licensing models are really working for libraries and their users.
We look forward to sharing research and insights to support work in these areas.
21 January 2025
