STM NEWSROOM

The NIH will restore 900 grants that were cut earlier this year under a recent court ruling. Other researchers have seen reversals in research cuts from other agencies, and courts are investigating cuts by NSF and others (e.g., this one and this one). The cap of 15% on overhead at NSF and NIH is also on hold pending court…

Following an executive order promoting ‘Gold Standard Science,’ the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy (OSTP) has issued guidance for agencies on ‘incorporating Gold Standard Science tenets into their research activities.’ The original executive order raised concerns and debate in the scientific community, as these articles show: ‘Fool’s Gold’ ‘Why Trump’s push for “gold standard science” has researchers…

The European Commission will soon launch a study to evaluate the 2019 EU Copyright Directive—examining its benefits, implementation challenges, and unresolved issues, particularly around text and data mining (TDM) exceptions for commercial and scientific research. Beyond the evaluation, the Commission will explore potential new measures to support the development of a licensing market that enables…

Updates remain limited on the Code of Practice for General-Purpose AI and the accompanying template for a sufficiently detailed summary of training content. Both documents are currently with the EU’s new AI Office, which will consult the AI Board (Member State representatives) during June. Latest reports suggest the Code, the summary template, and the General-Purpose…

A call for evidence and a detailed questionnaire will be launched in the coming weeks on the official consultation page. In parallel, a new study will begin to assess the economic impact of proposed measures—such as an EU-wide Secondary Publication Right and changes to copyright exceptions for scientific research—on stakeholders including publishers. It will be…

The European Union Intellectual Property Office (EUIPO) has published an extensive study exploring generative AI from a copyright perspective. The report notes, among other challenges, that there is no common standard for disclosing synthetic content or expressing reservation of rights under the Copyright Directive’s Text and Data Mining exception. It also mentions several ongoing legal disputes between…

In her speech at the Annual EU Budget Conference, European Commission President Von der Leyen stated, “Our framework programme Horizon Europe will stay as a self-standing programme…tightly connected to our Competitiveness Fund. We need a seamless flow from fundamental research to applied research to start-ups to scale-up.” This announcement inspired some relief among the research community, who interpreted…

As expected, last month, the Competitiveness Ministers of the European Council adopted several documents with implications for open access and AI: The Council Recommendations for ERA Policy Agenda 2025-27 is a ‘non-binding roadmap’ of initiatives to drive the European Research Area forward, including copyright interventions that apply to Action 1 on Open Science. The Council’s conclusions on AI in science state that AI collaboration…

Last month, the European Commission launched a consultation on the Data Union Strategy — an attempt to simplify and consolidate rules concerning data, its flow across international borders and its use in AI. The Data Union Strategy could lead to a rise in generative AI and establish Europe as, in the Commission’s own words, an ‘AI Continent’. The Commission…

On 23 May, President Trump signed an executive order to ‘restore Gold Standard Science’ — but what exactly does that mean? In the executive order and related fact sheet, the administration claims there is a ‘reproducibility crisis’ in science and that the government needs to restore transparency to research. The direct targets here are policies that the administration disagrees…