Cropped etching of Minerva with a helmet, featuring event title and information.

Join us on October 2nd, from 1500h to 1700h, for an in-person event on why Europe needs a Digital Knowledge Act at TownHall Europe, Brussels!

What to expect

The European Union is spending massively on research and innovation. Horizon Europe has a budget of €95.5 billion, up from a cool €80 billion for its predecessor program, Horizon 2020. This important strategic investment has and will continue to bring about scientific breakthroughs. And yet, the EU has failed to prioritise crucial reforms allowing universities to achieve Horizon Europe’s goal, “the creation and better diffusion of excellent knowledge and technologies.”

Universities, libraries and archives face many of the same hurdles, preventing them from fulfilling their key public-interest mission – to promote access to knowledge and information. For too long, these knowledge institutions have been an afterthought in legislation. If we want EU research funding to reach its full potential and maximise Europe’s innovative capacity, we must put their needs on the legislative agenda.

Over the past months, COMMUNIA has worked together with other experts and representatives of knowledge institutions to identify the problems that they face and have developed position papers with concrete asks for six key issues:

  1. access to public sector documents and public speeches;
  2. access to publicly funded research and a unified research exception;
  3. a right to use cultural heritage in the Public Domain;
  4. an EU-wide right to e-lend;
  5. a limitation of liability for knowledge institutions; and
  6. measures to address refusals to license and unfair licensing practices.

Now, we want to discuss our findings with you!

The event will bring together academics, representatives of civil society and EU policymakers to discuss legislative measures that would enable knowledge institutions to fulfil their public mission in the digital age. Keep an eye on our event page for updates regarding the agenda and speaker line-up. Following the event, we invite all participants to stay for a networking reception.

Registration

The event is open to anyone upon registration. If we have already peaked your interest, register now!

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