Yesterday, we submitted our response (PDF file) to the public consultation questionnaire on the European Research Area (ERA) Act. The ERA Act, which the European Commission is expected to introduce towards the end of this year, aims to remove persistent barriers to the completion of the European Research Area. While the final content of the […]
In our capacity as accredited observers of the WIPO Standing Committee on Copyright and Related Rights (SCCR), we are attending the 47th session of the Committee, which is currently taking place in Geneva (1-5 December, 2025). Yesterday, we made the following statement on Limitations and exceptions for libraries and archives/Limitations and exceptions for educational and […]
Last week, COMMUNIA submitted its response to the European Commission’s questionnaire on the European Innovation Act. The Commission considers this initiative a key element of the EU Startup and Scaleup Strategy, designed to improve conditions for innovators by facilitating the commercialisation of research results, strengthening collaboration between academia and industry, and improving access to markets, […]
Yesterday, COMMUNIA made a submission to the call for evidence for an impact assessment on the European Research Area (ERA) Act. The European Commission is expected to propose an ERA Act over the course of the 2024-2029 mandate, to turn the “fifth freedom” for research, innovation, knowledge and education into reality and unlock European research. […]
Today, COMMUNIA releases Policy Paper #23 for a general scientific research exception (also available as a PDF file), advocating for a comprehensive overhaul of the copyright framework for research uses. The research exceptions in the EU copyright acquis are too limited in scope, not sufficiently harmonised, and display additional conceptual issues, preventing the realisation of […]
In our capacity as accredited observers of the WIPO Standing Committee on Copyright and Related Rights (SCCR), we are attending the 46th session of the Committee, which is currently taking place in Geneva (April 7-11, 2025). This morning, we made the following statement on Limitations and exceptions for libraries and archives/Limitations and exceptions for educational and research […]
Today, COMMUNIA made a submission to the EU Start-up and Scale-up Strategy call for evidence (available as a PDF file). Due to COMMUNIA’s focus on access to knowledge, we focused on this issue, outlining specific barriers to access to knowledge that apply to start-ups and scale-ups as well as the research sector, which is the […]
Earlier this week, we submitted comments (available as a PDF file) to the UK Intellectual Property Office’s consultation on copyright and artificial intelligence (AI). Our contribution reflects COMMUNIA’s position that a general text and data (TDM) mining exception for scientific research is needed to enable any kind of research that relies on large amounts of […]
The EU heads of state or government came together for an informal meeting in Budapest last week to adopt the “Budapest Declaration on the New European Competitiveness Deal” with the goal to strengthen European competitiveness, develop common economic prosperity, and ensure the EU’s sovereignty and global influence. In the declaration, the Council commends the recent […]
Since the beginning of the year, we have fleshed out proposals for measures that should be included in a Digital Knowledge Act — a targeted legislative intervention that enables libraries, archives, universities and other knowledge institutions to offer the same services online as offline. In a series of six policy papers, we identified the constraints […]
