IFLA: opening research information by law

For over two decades, the open access movement has advocated for—and delivered on—the goal of making the published results of research available without financial barriers.

Building on this, the drive for open science has expanded this focus, recognising that full openness goes beyond publishing research findings to encompass the full range of outputs generated throughout the research process, including data, methodologies, and more.

However, openness does not stop at the information produced in the pursuit of research: it also covers research information – information about research itself. This is at the heart of the Barcelona Declaration, agreed in April 2024, and which has been receiving growing attention since then. The Declaration defines research information as ranging: “from information about research actors and their activities to information about inputs and outputs in the research process and signals of the use, esteem, and societal impact of research.”

The Declaration underlines that such information is essential for monitoring open science, assessing researchers and institutions, enabling evidence-based analysis and decision-making in all domains of science policy, and promoting transparency and inclusion. It closely aligns with existing campaigns, such as the Initiative for Open Abstracts and the Initiative for Open Citations.

The imperative is clear: this information must be open to ensure that it does not end up locked inside proprietary infrastructures, giving control over research assessment to those who control the data.

The reconsideration of the Open Data Directive in the context of its proposed incorporation into the EU’s Data Act, offers an important opportunity to clarify and improve the situation, by ensuring that the provisions of the Directive also cover research information moving forward.

The Situation Today

The current focus of the Open Data Directive is on digital materials, other than publications:

“which are collected or produced in the course of scientific research activities and are used as evidence in the research process, or are commonly accepted in the research community as necessary to validate research findings and results;” (Article 2(9))

Recital 27 clarifies that open access to research data helps to “enhance quality, reduce the need for unnecessary duplication of research, speed up scientific progress, combat scientific fraud, and […] favour economic growth and innovation.” Article 10, in turn, mandates that this data should be re-usable. In short, there is already a legal basis for promoting data sharing to promote efficiency and effectiveness in research.

While the current focus of the Directive does not explicitly focus on research information, the underlying objectives are closely aligned: effective resource allocation, better and faster access to existing research, leading to improved understanding of research trends and practices.

At a policy level, openness around research information is also a well-established priority. Paragraph 14 of the Council Conclusions on Research Assessment and Implementation of Open Science of 10 June 2022, adopted under the French Council Presidency, states:

“INVITES the Member States, the Commission and stakeholders to promote independence, openness, reproducibility and transparency of the data and criteria necessary for research assessment and for determining research impacts; CONSIDERS that data and bibliographic databases used for research assessment should, in principle, be openly accessible and that tools and technical systems should enable transparency”

This makes it clear that research information should not be hidden away, but rather its openness must be guaranteed.

An Expanded Definition for a More Comprehensive Approach

Legislation is not a cure-all. Cultural change and the development and implementation of new policies and practices at the national, institutional, and individual levels take time. That said, legislative reform can play a key enabling role by offering guarantees and assurances that help unlock wider change.

In other words, while changes to the law alone will not deliver the goals of the Barcelona Declaration, they can meaningfully help advance this agenda.

One immediate step would be to expand the Directive’s definition of research data to include bibliographic metadata such as abstracts and citations. This would still fall short of guaranteeing open access to full publications—something that a Secondary Publication Right and promotion of Rights Retention and open licensing could do—but would represent an important starting point.

A further step would be to examine how legislation could place obligations on publishers to release such information, while also ensuring that data produced by public research funding and performing organisations does not end up locked away in proprietary systems.

The Directive already recognises repositories as key venues for access to relevant data and information, making it relatively straightforward to extend their role in this context. Requiring commercial platforms that publish publicly funded research to share data would be an additional step, but one that is consistent both with the goals of the Directive and the political priorities established in the Council Conclusions.

One aspect that would need to be addressed is the Directive’s emphasis on protecting legitimate commercial interests. There is undoubtedly a commercial interest in controlling such data, with some publishers increasingly presenting themselves as data analytics firms rather than traditional publishers. The key question, however, is how far their interests can be considered legitimate when control over research information undermines the achievement of policy goals. Greater openness may, in fact, stimulate the emergence of new value-added services.

In parallel, continued investment will be needed to develop appropriate infrastructures, frameworks, and guidelines, as well as to secure sustainable funding sources for metadata.

Next Steps

This is a live policy issue. The update to the Open Data Directive is underway, as part of the EU’s Digital Omnibus, and the Commission has already proposed substantial changes to the Directive, implying that there is scope to expand on other aspects.

In parallel, of course, the forthcoming European Research Area (ERA) Act may include provisions on research assessment, as well as on Secondary Publication Rights and Rights Retention. However, in the spirit of keeping EU research laws streamlined and as simple as possible, it would make sense to make relevant changes to the Open Data Directive.

In short, both the legal foundation and the political mandate exist. Member States and the research community have clearly called for greater openness around research information, and the current reform process provides a timely opportunity to deliver. Doing so would offer valuable support for the work of the Barcelona Declaration to facilitate access to research and the monitoring and assessment of open science.

If the EU is serious about advancing open science, improving research assessment, and safeguarding its public interest objectives, then opening research information should not remain a voluntary ideal. This reform is the moment to make it a legal reality.

This article was first published on 30 January 2026 by IFLA.