Economic analysis of legislative frameworks ⁄ Visionary Analytics

Open access to publicly funded research outputs (publications, data and other R&I results) is central to a high-performing European Research Area. Yet the pathways to openness intersect with complex market structures, evolving business models in scientific publishing, and a legislative landscape that spans EU copyright, licensing, and research exceptions. Assessing how changes in currect EU policies would affect costs, incentives and the circulation of knowledge is essential to ensure Europe’s research remains competitive, efficient and trustworthy, while sustaining a healthy publishing ecosystem.

Commissioned by the European Commission DG RTD and delivered in partnership with Technopolis Group, Timelex, Opix and EY, Visionary Analytics is leading an economic study to assess how EU legislative and regulatory frameworks as well as market dynamics, shape access to and reuse of publicly funded research and innovation (R&I) outputs, including publications and data. The work focuses on copyright legislation and examines an EU-wide Secondary Publication Right (SPR) and a strengthened research exception within the EU copyright acquis. The aim is to generate robust economic evidence to support an efficient, open and internationally competitive European Research Area.

The study will:

Assess the current market and legislative dynamics in scientific publishing and open access, covering stakeholder roles (RPOs, publishers, repositories), costs for RPOs and funders, publishers’ contributions to OA and the EU economy, and practices across the EU and internationally.

Evaluate the impact of proposed measures (an EU-wide SPR and a strengthened research exception) assessing how they could reduce barriers to OA, affect circulation and reuse of results and data, and influence publishers’ business models, including interplay with transformative agreements and Gold/Green OA.

Assess economic implications for stakeholders and the research ecosystem, including RPOs, researchers, commercial and non-commercial publishers, EU research performance and competitiveness vis-à-vis non-EU G7 countries, and impacts on productivity and access to knowledge.

Develop scenarios on variants of SPR and research exceptions under different conditions (e.g., embargo periods, licensing scope, funding flows) to illuminate costs, benefits, risks and distributional effects.

The project is expected to be completed by April 2026.