Dependence on foreign data infrastructure threatens EU research, Parliament hears

Europe must reduce its dependence on foreign-controlled databases, particularly those in the US, the European Parliament has heard. Dependence on these resources leaves European researchers and policymakers vulnerable to geopolitical shifts and commercial interests.

“Data sovereignty is not just a policy slogan, but an essential element of our research and innovation agenda,” said Signe Ratso, the European Commission’s chief negotiator for Horizon Europe association agreements, during a panel on research data held in the Parliament on October 1. She noted that EU's reliance on external data sources has already affected public health, climate modelling and environmental monitoring.

“When critical datasets and analytical tools are hosted outside the EU [and] when their access or even the content is uncertain and can change beyond our control, core scientific values can be compromised,” she said. 

Lina Gálvez Muñoz, an MEP with the Socialists and Democrats group who sits on the Parliament’s research committee, expressed concern that major databases in various areas are supported by infrastructures governed predominantly by the US.

“There is no research or innovation without data and research freedom,” she said, adding that secure access to reliable datasets free from external constraints is indispensable for scientific progress. 

These concerns were echoed by Thomas Hartung, a pharmacology professor from John Hopkins University in the US. Increasingly treated as a commodity, data risk falling under political and commercial control, which, he said, could compromise the very foundations of open science. 

Much of Europe’s biomedical research, for instance, relies on PubMed, a US-controlled database of medical literature. If access were restricted, Hartung said, it would immediately disrupt medical research across the continent.

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Sovereignty, not isolation

According to Ratso, data sovereignty should not mean isolation: “Many of today's greatest challenges, like climate change, pandemics [and] biodiversity loss, cannot be addressed without cross-border access to critical datasets.” 

Europe must remain open, she said, by forging new international data-sharing agreements, strengthening ties with like-minded partners and contributing to a trusted global framework for data exchange. 

As part of the EU’s strategy to strengthen data sovereignty, Ratso pointed to the European Open Science Cloud (EOSC). Launched in 2015 and now uniting dozens of infrastructures, EOSC aims to give researchers seamless access to European data while ensuring providers retain ownership of their datasets.

“EOSC will ensure data sovereignty in Europe,” said Klaus Tochtermann, president of the EOSC Association, also appearing on the panel. He announced that a new call for infrastructures to join EOSC will be launched in early November, with additional calls planned over the next year. “We anticipate around 100 infrastructures to become part of the EOSC,” he said.

Looking ahead, Ratso said that the Commission's proposal for the next iteration of Horizon Europe “doubles down on the ambition to make Europe the world's most trusted home for critical research data.” Unlike previous programmes, she said, it foresees significant investments in research infrastructure.