Blog post by Stephen Wyber
What have we learned from mission letters to EU Commissioners-designate
The names of the proposed new EU Commissioners are in, as are the dossiers that each of them is expected to take on.
In allocating roles, the President of the Commission, Ursula von der Leyen, issued Mission Letters, highlighting both core themes for the group as a whole, and specific tasks for each. As the one EU institution with a right of initiative – i.e. the right to propose legislation – what the Commission does here is essential.
These letters contain – at a high level – an idea of what the legislative agenda for the next five years will be. In this post, we ask what do they mean for access to research, education and culture, and the libraries and others who work to provide it?
We look in particular at the instructions given to Commissioners-designate Zaharieva (start-ups, research and innovation), Virkkunen (tech sovereignty, security and democracy), Séjourné (prosperity and industrial strategy), Micallef (intergenerational fairness, youth, culture and sport), McGrath (democracy, justice and the rule of law), and Mînzatu (people, skills and preparedness).
Towards a research-centred legislative programme
A key ask of Knowledge Rights 21 is for the European Union to make a Copernican shift in how it looks at research and education. Given how vital these are for the European Union’s ability to address the challenges of the future, including of course competitiveness, it is time to make them the centre of attention.
This stands in contrast to the approach up to now, where research and education have too often been treated as side-issues (if they have been remembered at all). Copyright regulation, which sees research and education as mere ‘exceptions’ to exclusive monopoly rights, is a particularly strong example.
As such, the task given to Commissioner-designate Zaharieva to develop both a European Research Area Act and European Innovation Act are very welcome. Knowledge Rights 21’s EU Action Plan contains many evidence-based proposals that would fit well within these proposals. These run from building a right of access to information for researchers (overcoming worrying practices around publishers’ refusals to license materials to educational establishments), to steps to accelerate the shift to open access and open science. The report commissioned by the European Commission into how far copyright and data legislation supports access to publicly funded research, and research in general, is also a rich source of ideas.
While not legislative steps, parallel initiatives to increase uptake of AI by European scientists and to set up an AI Research Council will need to address both the uncertainties created by recent EU laws, and the fundamentally hostile approach of the copyright industry. We can only hope that the recent Nobel Prizes will show that those calling for restrictions on AI research are on the wrong side of history.
An important point will be, nonetheless, to get beyond the conception that ‘research’ is a public-sector activity, while ‘innovation’ only takes place in the private sector. This runs violently against the Knowledge Valorisation agenda that the European Union has sought to promote so strongly. The planned Strategy for Start-Ups and Scale-Ups could help in this regard, recognising that it is Europe’s universities and research institutions that are the birthplace of many such exciting new actors.
These pieces of legislation will need to be closely interconnected in order to avoid the sort of confusion created around research-industry partnerships in the past. And as we have underlined in the past, there will also need to be close attention to ensuring that the good work done in one area is not then undermined by a failure to identify negative side-effects from work elsewhere.
The ongoing focus on better regulation provides some hope here (as does the combination of research with start-ups, rather than culture in Commissioners’ briefs), but Europe also needs structures to ensure a research-positive overall legislative framework going forwards.
Making digital work for all
Despite all the talk of Europe taking the lead globally in regulating the digital space, the EU so far has effectively overseen a deregulation of knowledge and information markets by allowing them to be governed by private contracts rather than the law.
This leaves the rights of researchers, educators, scientists, learners and readers – and so the achievement of key public policy objectives – dependent on the ability of their institutions to get a good deal when negotiating access to content. This cannot be taken for granted for a number of reasons. Not only refusal to license, but also due to the imbalance of power that exists between organisations who must have access to publications in order to function, and publishers who can simply walk away or impose unacceptable terms on the weaker negotiating party benefit from protections To solve this, like consumers, educational institutions should be protected from unfair contracts.
We therefore have high hopes of the proposed Digital Fairness Act, which could take important steps to ensure that fundamental rights and public policy goals are not being undermined in the digital age. It should certainly include a closer look at the operation of digital markets, not least that for eBooks, which as pointed out by library associations across Europe is clearly not working for libraries and their users.
We also have hope for planned steps to support the next generation of European researchers. In particular, we note that they are too often at a disadvantage when looking to make their work available open access, and so build their reputations and impacts. In parallel with work to promote secondary publishing rights, support for rights retention and wider protections in negotiations with publishers will be key pillars of this agenda.
We hope, too, that the proposed Youth Checks will include consideration of how digital markets and practices are enabling – or hindering – access to research, education and culture for young people. Work to facilitate visiting and engagement with cultural heritage could also help in this regard.
Freedom of movement of knowledge
One of the most significant aspects of the Letta Report was its call for a Fifth Freedom – the freedom of movement of knowledge. Vice-President Séjourné is given the task of revising the EU’s Single Market Strategy, and surely the incorporation of the Fifth Freedom must be a priority within this, for all the reasons shared by the former Italian Prime Minister.
The European Research Area Act is already mentioned above, but in addition to the boost it could provide to individual researchers and research teams in their work, it also implies concrete steps to ensure true integration of research across the EU. Our EU Action Plan offers key ideas here, including a call for harmonisation of research exceptions to copyright and the adoption of a principles-based approach to these that enables innovation, rather than making it subject to permission.
Closely linked to the proposal around the European Research Area Act is the call for more work to support European University Alliances. These offer a practical structure for supporting cross-border research, and so are a welcome move towards making a reality of freedom of movement of knowledge. Of course to work optimally, they will require a serious effort to eliminate or limit barriers to cooperation that can come from the misalignment of information regulation. Linked to this will be the task of progressing the European Education Area – while education itself is not an EU competence, other areas where the EU is active – such as copyright of course – should be adjusted to support this goal.
Next Steps
There is a busy agenda for the coming years, with Commissioner Zaharieva in particular taking on a number of important tasks. There is a lot to welcome in this, in particular the emphasis on placing research at the centre of our innovation strategies the moves towards acting on the concept of a fifth freedom, as well as the need for digital fairness.
This will nonetheless need to be a coordinated agenda – a range of Commissioners are involved in this work, and there will certainly be push-back from those who feel that they have more to gain from the status quo. We look forward to working with the Commission, Members of the European Parliament and Member States to ensure that the EU ends this term better set for a strong and inclusive future.
14 October 2024
