Open Access News

News from the open access movement


Saturday, March 15, 2008

More on the 'fifth freedom' and OA

If you recall, last month the Council of the European Union agreed that the EU "needs to create a 'fifth freedom' - the free movement of knowledge" (beyond the four freedoms guaranteed by the EU Treaty to assure the movement of goods, services, capital, and labor).   But in elaborating what the "free movement of knowledge" meant, the ministers did not mention OA, even though the original documents behind the idea tied it explicitly to OA.

Yesterday, Ziga Turk, the Slovenian Minister for Growth, blogged some notes on the Spring European Council (Brussels, March 8-9, 2008).  The prime ministers of the 27 EU member states apparently tied the new fifth freedom back to OA, concluding that it entailed:

facilitating and promoting the optimal use of intellectual property created in public research organisations so as to increase knowledge transfer to industry, in particular through an "IP Charter" to be adopted before the end of the year and encouraging open access to knowledge and open innovation.

Update (3/19/08).  Also see the EU press release (March 17) on the meeting, containing a slightly different version of the same language:

...Member States and the EU must remove barriers to the free movement of knowledge by creating a fifth freedom. This would involve enhancing the cross-border mobility of researchers, as well as students, scientists, and university teaching staff. It would also require facilitating and promoting the optimal use of intellectual property created in public research organisations and encouraging open access to knowledge....

Update (3/19/08).  Also see Ziga Turk's new post on the language of the press release.