5th Freedom: The Freedom of Knowledge – Call for Input from European Researchers

/ hace 13 segundos 16 junio, 2026

Os remitimos información sobre una iniciativa de la EU commission que puede ser de interés para la comunidad investigadora.

La Junta Directiva de la SEPEX

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Dear Members of the SEPEX:

The EU Commission plans to create a fully integrated European Research Area (ERA Act, to be presented in late 2026 – https://european-research-area.ec.europa.eu/era-act). 

The Fifth Freedom: Free mobility for researchers in Europe, open access, and more

A core part of the ERA Act will be the Fifth Freedom – the free movement of knowledge, researchers, technologies, and funding throughout Europe. (“Fifth” in extension of the four freedoms of the EU Single Market.)

This freedom should lead to an abolition of bureaucracies that inhibit or prevent scientific mobility and collaboration, and that discriminate by nationality among EU researchers. This freedom aims to give researchers more time and capacities for their main jobs – research, teaching, innovation, and dissemination. This freedom should boost science in Europe.

All countries in Europe have their problematic habits and laws. Your knowledge of them is crucial.

What can you do, easily and quickly?

There is a simple way for helping the Fifth Freedom agenda. The European Citizen Action Service (ECAS) in Brussels, working with the cabinet of European Commissioner for Research, has a webpage for the participation of researchers:

We welcome inputs from all European academics in all sciences and humanities:

  • Look at the brief explanatory sections on the webpage: https://ecas.org/projects/the-fifth-freedom/
  • Under «Input”, provide your experiences concerning barriers to the free, cross-border mobility of EU researchers, knowledge, funding, and technology. This might concern, e.g. pre- and postdoc applications and hiring, pension systems incompatibilities, research funding, or lack of open access to scientific articles. 
  • If possible, write what the 5th Freedom should include.
  • If you need examples for your experiences and proposals: see «Supplementary Material” in the attached article. 
  • Anonymity of submissions will be preserved, in line with data protection legislation.
  • We welcome submissions ideally before mid-June.

The ERA Act is being designed as you read this, and submissions will help the Commissioner’s team. As political negotiations in the Parliament and Council will continue over the next years, later submissions will be possible – though now they have the strongest impact in the preparation of the ERA Act.

Thank you very much for your collaboration!

Best regards,

The ECAS Fifth Freedom Team & Thomas Sturm

Prof. Dr. Thomas Sturm
ICREA Research Professor
Department of Philosophy
Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona
08193 Bellaterra (Barcelona)

ICREA – https://www.icrea.cat/community/icreas/17710/thomas-sturm/

Academia Europaea – https://www.ae-info.org/ae/Member/Sturm_Thomas

ECAS Fifth Freedom – Request for submissions from EU researchers: https://ecas.org/projects/the-fifth-freedom/

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