Today, Centrum Cyfrowe is publishing Barriers to Research: Insights into the Patchwork of Research Exceptions in European Copyright Laws and Practical Perspectives from European Researchers, a report prepared in collaboration with the Future Law Lab at the Jagiellonian University (the PDF is available on Zenodo).1 The report examines whether the European copyright framework is keeping pace with the realities of contemporary research and explores how copyright rules affect researchers’ everyday work across Europe.
Research today is international, digital, data-intensive, and collaborative by default. Scientists routinely work across borders, rely on access to large collections of publications and data, use computational methods such as text and data mining (TDM), and increasingly incorporate AI tools into their research workflows. Yet the legal framework governing access to and use of copyrighted materials remains fragmented along national lines.
Our findings show that, despite decades of copyright harmonisation efforts at the EU level, researchers across Europe still operate within a highly fragmented legal environment, resulting in legal uncertainty and unnecessary obstacles to scientific research. Through a comparative analysis of 28 European jurisdictions and interviews with researchers and legal experts, we found that the current system often forces researchers to navigate conflicting national regulations, unclear exceptions, restrictive licensing practices, and varying interpretations of what is legally permitted. The findings challenge one of the core assumptions underlying EU copyright policy: that harmonisation has created a common legal environment for research. In reality, the opposite appears to be true.
Openness Index of Research Exceptions
Using the newly developed I-REx (Index of Research Exceptions), we found that all EU Member States have implemented research exceptions more restrictively than required under EU law. The index assessed ten copyright exceptions that are particularly relevant for scientific research, including the research exception under Article 5(3)(a) of the InfoSoc Directive, research exceptions for copyright-protected and sui generis databases, the research exception for neighbouring rights, as well as supplementary exceptions such as quotation, private copying, reproductions by libraries, educational establishments, museums and archives, dedicated terminals, reprographic reproduction, and the TDM exception for scientific research. The I-REx measures the openness of copyright systems towards scientific research: the higher the score, the more restrictive the legal framework and the narrower the scope of research uses permitted under copyright exceptions. Conversely, lower scores indicate more open and research-friendly copyright regimes. While the EU framework establishes a minimum standard intended to support research activities, national legislators have frequently introduced additional conditions, limitations, and procedural requirements that narrow researchers’ freedoms. As a result, the average level of restrictiveness across Member States is more than twice as high as the baseline level represented by the EU standard itself.
The consequences are significant. Activities that are clearly permitted in one jurisdiction may be prohibited, or at least legally uncertain, in another. As a result, cross-border research collaborations often operate under a constant cloud of legal uncertainty. In practice, international research consortia frequently need to align their activities with the most restrictive legal regime among participating countries, effectively reducing the scope of lawful research for everyone involved.
Perhaps most strikingly, our case-study analysis revealed that even copyright experts frequently disagreed about the legality of common research activities. Across ten typical research scenarios assessed by experts from 21 European countries, there was no clear consensus on whether many activities were permitted or prohibited. Experts from different countries reached markedly different conclusions when assessing identical research scenarios, highlighting not only the diversity of national implementations but also the broader lack of legal certainty surrounding research uses. If legal specialists struggle to determine what the law allows, it is unrealistic to expect researchers themselves to navigate these complexities with confidence.
Evidence from researchers
The qualitative research paints a similar picture. Researchers often perceive copyright not as a tool that supports science, but as a source of uncertainty and practical obstacles. Many reported receiving little or no formal training on copyright law and instead relying on informal practices, professional networks, and institutional workarounds to access and share research materials.
A particularly striking finding was the prevalence of a “greater good” mindset. Many researchers view the creation and dissemination of knowledge as a societal mission that outweighs restrictive or unclear copyright rules. As a result, they sometimes prioritise scientific collaboration and access to knowledge over strict legal compliance, operating in legal grey areas when copyright law is perceived as incompatible with legitimate research needs. Participants also highlighted that copyright regulation has not kept pace with contemporary research practices, especially in areas such as Artificial Intelligence, Machine Learning, and Text and Data Mining. Overall, the findings point to a growing disconnect between existing copyright frameworks and the realities of modern, digital, and collaborative research.
Fragmentation creates barriers to research
Europe cannot build a competitive and innovative research ecosystem while maintaining legal fragmentation of this scale. Rather than supporting scientific activity, the current framework often pushes researchers into legal grey areas, where routine and socially valuable research practices exist in a state of uncertainty. Instead of enabling the production and dissemination of knowledge, copyright rules frequently require researchers to spend time assessing legal risks, interpreting complex and divergent regulations, and worrying about the legality of everyday research activities. This shifts attention and resources away from scientific inquiry itself and places an unnecessary burden on those whose primary role should be to generate new knowledge, not to navigate a fragmented and unpredictable copyright landscape.
Such a system is also difficult to reconcile with broader European and global policy objectives, including the UN Sustainable Development Goals. Scientific research is widely recognised as a key driver of innovation, education, public health, and evidence-based policymaking. Legal frameworks that create barriers to access, collaboration, and knowledge exchange ultimately undermine efforts to advance sustainable development and address global challenges. Rather than facilitating the production and circulation of knowledge as a public good, the current copyright framework too often hampers the very research activities needed to support inclusive and sustainable social, economic, and technological progress.
Policy recommendations
We therefore call for concrete reforms at both the national and EU levels.
In the short term, Member States should fully implement research exceptions in line with the scope permitted by EU law, without introducing additional national restrictions that undermine their effectiveness. Research exceptions should be protected against contractual override, and uses that are lawful in one Member State should be recognised as lawful throughout the EU (European Standard+).
In the longer term, Europe needs a mandatory and fully harmonised research exception that genuinely reflects the realities of contemporary scientific research (Enhanced Exception for Scientific Research).
As proposed in our report, such an exception should:
- Permit the use of copyrighted works and other protected subject matter for scientific research purposes across the EU.
- Apply regardless of national borders, ensuring legal certainty for cross-border research collaborations.
- Prevent contractual terms, including choice-of-law and jurisdiction clauses, from overriding researchers’ rights.
- Allow researchers to circumvent technological protection measures when necessary to benefit from the exception
More broadly, the EU should recognise that scientific knowledge is a public good and that copyright law must support, rather than hinder, the creation, sharing, and reuse of knowledge. A genuine European Research Area requires a legal framework that prioritises research, collaboration, and innovation over legal fragmentation and uncertainty.
The right to research should not depend on where a researcher is located. It should be guaranteed throughout Europe. The ongoing work on the European Research Area Act (ERA Act), together with the ongoing evaluation of the CDSM Directive, offers a timely opportunity to embed this principle in EU law and policy. If the EU is serious about establishing research as the “fifth freedom” of the internal market, the ERA Act should include safeguards ensuring that intellectual property frameworks, including copyright law, actively enable rather than constrain scientific research. The right to research must become a core component of the European Research Area.
Footnotes
- The data used in the report was gathered and analysed thanks to the support of Knowledge Rights 21. Its publication was made possible thanks to COMMUNIA.
