A Digital Legislation That Works for Science?

While the Digital Services Act is targeted at commercial platforms, its definitions and obligations are likely to create legal uncertainty on its applicability to non-profit educational and scientific repositories, digital archives, and libraries.

We consider these entities not to fall under the obligations provided by the DSA. However, as the text does not explicitly exclude them, the applicability to research organisations and universities will mostly be left to legal and judicial interpretation at the national level. This will likely result in legal uncertainty and fragmentation between Member States, and potentially impair scientific and educational data sharing and access across national borders.