About | HeinOnline Law Journal Library | HeinOnline Law Journal Library | HeinOnline
LOG IN
LOG IN

11 J. Open Access L. 1 (2023)
Reconciling Open Science with Technological Sovereignty: Can the European Union Do It?

handle is hein.journals/jopacc11 and id is 69 raw text is: Reconciling Open Science with Technological Sovereignty: Can the European Union do it? Luc Soete*, Jean-Claude Burgelman * Emeritus Professor, UNU-MERIT, Maastricht University, The Netherlands and Dean, Brussels School of Governance, Free University of Brussels (VUB), Belgium 'Professor and academic coordinator Open Science, Free University of Brussels (VUB), Belgium and Editor-In-Chief, Frontiers Policy Lab Abstract. Openness has emerged over the last decades as a core European value and an explicit policy ambition of the European Commission, in its science and research policy. Since 2016 the EU became a formal leader in open science and with its plan S it championed open access. Quite recently, a need for a more realistic approach has emerged with Europe positioning itself now as striving towards technological sovereignty. The question addressed in this paper is how the notion of openness can be maintained as a core characteristic of European values in a world in which the geo-political tensions following the Russian invasion of Ukraine in 2022, have taken their toll. Particularly with respect to the global sustainability challenge, the question can be raised how technological sovereignty as opposed to open science is likely to contribute to tackling the global climate and biodiversity crises. Keywords: open science, strategic autonomy, industrial policy, data protection, technological sovereignty 1. Introduction On June 3rd, 1769, some 250 astronomers across the world looked for the second time in eight years through their respective telescopes at the sun to observe the moment that the planet Venus would once again transit between the Earth and the Sun', a situation that occurs only pairwise every Century2. The extraordinary story of this first, large- scale scientific collaboration is being told by Andrea Wulf in her book Chasing Venus: the race to measure the heavens (Wulf, 2012). Ulti- mately some 150 observations of the transit were made from different locations across the earth ranging from Paris to Saint Petersburg, from California to Tahiti, from India to Mexico. The large-scale collection of measurement data from Venus' passage were essential for the measure- ment of distances between the planets in our solar system. When the 1 The next time would be in 1874 and 1882. The most recent occurrence was in 2004 and 2012. 2 See amongst others Hirschfeld (2002) and Wulf (2012).

What Is HeinOnline?

HeinOnline is a subscription-based resource containing thousands of academic and legal journals from inception; complete coverage of government documents such as U.S. Statutes at Large, U.S. Code, Federal Register, Code of Federal Regulations, U.S. Reports, and much more. Documents are image-based, fully searchable PDFs with the authority of print combined with the accessibility of a user-friendly and powerful database. For more information, request a quote or trial for your organization below.



Short-term subscription options include 24 hours, 48 hours, or 1 week to HeinOnline.

Purchase Access

Contact us for annual subscription options:

Contact Us

Already a HeinOnline Subscriber?

Log In

profiles profiles most