Blog post by Stephen Wyber
Exactly 2 years on from the agreement of landmark Conclusions on scholarly publishing, two further sets of EU Council Conclusions marked a further step forward in exploring how information law (including copyright) should apply in the context of research.
The first of these sets out the next Policy Agenda for the European Research Area (ERA), following up on an initial one that has done important work in making clear the impact of the wider EU acquis on research. This has strengthened the case for a long-standing KR21 goal: to ensure that research is treated as a top-level policy priority, not as an afterthought.
The second looks explicitly at AI in science, a topic that is currently also the subject of a Commission consultation in the context of the AI Continent Action Plan. The way the EU ends up approaching AI as a technology will be a test of how far it is prioritising research in its wider policy-making.
Maintaining the Momentum – The Era Policy Agenda 2025-2027
The Conclusions on the ERA Policy Agenda 2025-2027 are the result of an extensive and inclusive process of consultation with EU Member States and the stakeholders engaged in the ERA Forum over the last year.
The 2025-2027 Agenda sets out a range of areas where work will take place to support research, exchange, and the development of projects and infrastructures with the overall goal of facilitating the circulation of researchers, knowledge and technology (Article 179 of the Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union (TFEU)). It aligns work here closely with the Commission’s overall priorities of boosting competitiveness and resilience.
It follows on from the previous Agenda, aiming to provide a structure for unpacking issues which affect how far this circulation is a reality, and which included highly valuable work asking whether Europe’s copyright and data legislation favour access to and use of research outputs. This underlined that the achievement of the mandate established in Article 179 TFEU also required a readiness to update legislation and regulation, a point also recognised by the Commission in its Communication on ERA Implementation. In looking back, the Conclusions also recognise progress in supporting open science as a highlight of past work.
The new Agenda reiterates the importance of following parallel tracks: supporting soft law and infrastructure development on the one hand, and ‘hard’ law in relevant areas on the other, in order to combat the fragmentation of research and innovation policies. This point is welcome, but at the same time, there is a mix of ‘could’s and ‘will’s in the relevant paragraph, underlining the need for continued advocacy here.
Helpfully, the new ERA Policy Agenda does include ongoing work around understanding how legislation and regulation is affecting research, as well as the interaction between research and higher education. While work here is only highlighted as a sub-set of wider ‘structural policy’ areas, it has the potential to inform the EU’s wider simplification agenda, which looks to ‘stress test’ the acquis against the needs of stakeholders and propose amendments where needed.
Other areas – not least around supporting knowledge valorisation and equity in Open Science will also benefit from exploration of the impacts of legislation and regulation, and reflection on where reforms could complement other efforts. There is also scope, through work to assess and upgrade national research and innovation frameworks, to ensure that barriers are identified and removed.
Realising the Potential: AI in Science
The second set of Conclusions focus on the place of AI in science, and in particular on how Europe can ensure that the potential of this technology to boost research productivity can be realised.
They set out the right overall signals, underlining the importance of AI for the scientific process, as well as collaboration within this. There are also valuable points around the importance of investing in uptake, collaboration with start-ups and small and medium-sized enterprises, and the benefits of adopting open science practices around data collection and sharing, as well as model building.
Similarly, the conclusions note questions around the way in which AI is being used in scholarly publishing, echoing concerns from libraries around a loss of autonomy and lack of transparency in search and more.
However, the Conclusions take a relatively passive approach to questions around copyright. KR21 has underlinedrepeatedly in the past that a comprehensive approach to AI in science, as well as to AI research in general, must nonetheless address copyright, rather than treating it as a taboo.
At a time where there are both active efforts through contract terms to restrict researchers’ ability to carry out mining or use AI tools, and calls for the EU’s own narrow provisions for AI training for research to be even tighter, there is a risk in not standing up for science here.
It’s All in the Follow-up
Both sets of Conclusions will shape upcoming work in the EU. The ERA Policy Agenda is set to start before the end of the year. As highlighted, and in addition to the research reports and events it will produce, the Agenda has strong potential to feed vital evidence into ongoing discussions elsewhere – not just the ERA Act, but also the wider stress tests of the EU’s acquis.
Meanwhile, the AI in Science Conclusions come a couple of weeks before the deadline for comments on the EU’s Strategy on AI in Science. Here the priority will need to be to ensure that the EU does not limit itself in its drive to achieve the goal of the full realisation of the potential of AI in science and AI research by neglecting the role of copyright.
We look forward to working with Member States and the Commission alike in the months to come.
26 May 2025
