EU Data Act must promote fair access for data for research purposes

In a joint statement, EUA, CESAER, the Guild of European Research-Intensive Universities, Knowledge Rights 21, LIBER Europe and Sparc Europe welcome the focus on ensuring policies that constructively take into account the role and situation of universities when drafting EU regulation. As such, the associations welcome the distinction drawn between the for-profit commercial and non-profit scientific knowledge sectors in the initial European Commission proposals, as well as the European Parliament and Council of the EU amendments to further clarify and strengthen this aspect.

As a next step, the associations have laid out several recommendations for the co-legislators, focused on provisions that reflect the importance of enabling and supporting research. These notably include:

• Ensuring that compensation does not exceed the technical and organisational costs of making data available.
• Enabling the access to and reuse of data for researchers to address public emergencies.

Joint calls to the EU co-legislators to promote fair access to data for research purposes through the Data