JOINThe European Commission is gathering stakeholder feedback on the upcoming European Research Area (ERA) Act, expected for Q3 2026, through a questionnaire open until 5 January 2026. Questions related to OA mandates and rights retention strategies are included under the section ‘Free circulation of scientific knowledge’, including the option ‘the applicable legal frameworks should be reviewed to improve legal certainty and facilitate open access, sharing and reuse of data for scientific purposes in a secure way that ensures privacy’. STM will be coordinating a submission.
Author: Felicia Bowling
EU Commission’s work programme for 2026
The work programme of the EU Commission provides an overview of all that the institution will be working on in the coming year. For example, the ERA Act is included under ‘New initiatives’.
Besides what was inserted in the programme, it is also interesting to note that, despite the evaluation of the Copyright Directive of 2019 being planned for next year, this wasn’t mentioned under ‘Annual plan on evaluations and fitness checks’, presumably to avoid putting pressure on this quite delicate piece of legislation.
Australian government decides against introducing a TDM exception to copyright
The Australian government decided not to proceed with a text and data mining (TDM) exception to facilitate AI training. Such a recommendation was included in an interim report by the Productivity Commission over the summer, and may still be included in the final report due in December.
The Copyright & AI Reference Group (CAIRG) has also been reactivated as of the end of October to explore a licensing-led approach to AI use in Australia. This is extremely good news for now, but it only opens a wider debate on the copyright framework and licensing solutions for AI.
Learn more at ABC, The Guardian, AFR and Canberra Times.
STM joins the Observatory of the EUIPO
Our application to the Observatory of the European Intellectual Property Office (EUIPO) has been accepted! STM will join a network of IP professionals and have the opportunity to participate in and contribute to the working groups on IP in the digital world, enforcement and economics and statistics.
SAFE Research Act sparks debate over international collaboration
The SAFE Research Act (Securing American Funding and Expertise from Adversarial Research Exploitation Act of 2025) was included in the House of Representatives’ version of the Fiscal Year (FY) 2026 National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA), which passed the House last month. This legislation is one of the few pieces of legislation that must pass the US Congress each year. The SAFE Research Act was not included in the Senate-passed version of the NDAA. The House and Senate will now “conference” to decide which provisions to include in the final bill. If included, the SAFE Research Act would prohibit U.S. federal research funding from going to researchers or institutions that collaborate with “hostile foreign entities”. STM is drafting a letter that aligns with other bodies in the research sector who point out that this could have an impact on essential international collaboration.
Read more: AAU Expresses Concerns on NDAA’s SAFE Research Act
EU COM launches consultation on European Research Area (ERA) Act
Stakeholders are invited to respond to a questionnaire about key aspects that the ERA Act (planned Q3 2026) should cover. The most relevant section for STM is 3.2. on “Ensuring the free circulation of researchers and scientific knowledge”, which includes questions about barriers to access and re-use of scientific publications and (both legislative and non-legislative) ways to address those. Responses are due by 5 January, and STM will be coordinating a submission.
STM responds to AI labelling consultation
Article 50 of the AI Act establishes obligations for transparent labelling of AI-operated systems and AI-generated content. Publishers’ use of AI in the publishing process is very likely to fall under exemptions from such obligations, but translations remain a grey area and good practices are encouraged.
EU adopts strategy for AI in science
The EU will establish a Resource for AI in Europe (RAISE), a virtual institute/network that coordinates key elements of the strategy: talent, compute/infrastructure, data, and funding. This will be complemented by the Data Union Strategy, expected by October/November, which aims to “ensure the availability of high-quality, large-scale datasets essential for training AI models.” | Access the press release here
EU launches consultation on science diplomacy
STM will make a submission, drawing also from discussions at our Annual Conference in Frankfurt this week. The deadline for submissions is 3 November. | Read more about this initiative here
White House seeks input on AI regulation
The U.S. Office of Science and Technology Policy (OSTP) has issued a Request for Information (RFI) seeking public input on Federal statutes and regulations that may impede the responsible development and adoption of artificial intelligence technologies in the US. STM is preparing a submission as part of our ongoing advocacy on AI. Deadline October 27th | Access the RFI here