IP4OS Summit brings open science, intellectual property and AI together in Brussels
Why does Europe produce excellent research but not always retain its value? On 13 October 2026, the IP4OS project took that question to Brussels. The day started at the CSIC Brussels Office, where over 40 people joined in the room and more than 70 online, and moved to the European Parliament, where over 60 more gathered for an afternoon workshop on the future of intellectual property in the age of open science and AI.
Morning summit at CSIC Brussels
Prof. Julia Priess-Buchheit, IP4OS coordinator, and Bertil Egger Beck of the European Commission’s DG RTD opened the summit. A keynote by Stephen Wyber (IFLA) followed, showing that open science, much like an onion, has many layers. What “openness” means depends on where you stand, and creating value from research while preserving open science principles takes real work.
The first session was a fishbowl discussion on open science, intellectual property and innovation. IP4OS partners presented the project’s practical outputs, and the floor then opened for an exchange with the audience.
The second session, “From Principles to Practice”, featured three universities that shared their Open Innovation Challenge experiences. The University of Luxembourg, TU Hamburg and IE University Madrid spoke about the governance challenges they tackled and the institutional impact that followed.
Afternoon workshop at the European Parliament
The discussions then moved to the policy level with the STOA Workshop on rethinking intellectual property in the era of open science and AI, moderated by Katharina Miller (MIK). The speakers were:
- Tiemo Wölken, MEP and Shadow Rapporteur for the JURI report on copyright and genAI, on a responsible EU IP policy framework in the genAI era
- Richard Gold (McGill University), on IP protection and open science from an international perspective
- Gustav Nilsonne (Karolinska Institutet), on what IP tools can offer open science, drawing on the work done in IP4OS
- Pere Puigdomènech (ALLEA), with a case study on IP approaches to new genomic techniques in crop development
- Anika Müller-Karabil (Open Science Learning Gate), on open science capacity building and infrastructures within existing IP frameworks
- Manuel Aleixo (Cabinet of the Commissioner for Startups, Research and Innovation), on how the European IP system can support sovereign and inclusive innovation
Lina Galvez, MEP and STOA Vice-Chair, closed the workshop.
Together, the two events explored how intellectual property, open science and AI-driven innovation can be better aligned to strengthen Europe’s capacity to innovate.
