Knowledge Rights 21 Programme (KR21) National Initiatives

Support for research, events and other engagement activities to help accelerate reform of copyright policy to strengthen the rights of people to access and use knowledge and information.

The Knowledge Rights 21 Programme (KR21) is an initiative of the International Federation of Library Associations and Institutions Foundation (Stichting IFLA), the Arcadia Foundation, LIBER and SPARC Europe that that focuses on bringing about changes in legislation and practice across Europe that will strengthen the rights of people to access and use knowledge and information, in particular through libraries, archives and digitally, for education, innovation and cultural participation.

In particular, the key objectives of KR21 are:

• Facilitating fair access to e-books for users of public, national, educational, and research libraries
• Protecting users’ rights under copyright legislation from contract override and technological protection measures that undermine statutory exceptions to copyright
• Promoting the case for the introduction of open and flexible copyright norms in Europe to aid research, teaching, and learning
• Advocating for a legislated scholarly publication / secondary publishing right in laws
• Accelerating the uptake of author rights retention activities in Europe

KR21 has issued a Request for Proposals – ‘National Initiatives’ – to support events, research and other engagement initiatives that support the delivery of the goals of the KR21 Programme at a national level.

Proposed projects should contribute to one or more of the following policy areas:

• E-books
• Contract override
• Open norms
• Secondary publishing rights
• Rights retention
• Grassroots mobilisation

Types of activity that could be funded include, but are not limited to:

• Events that advance understanding and consensus around issues related to the KR21 Programme
• Targeted research and evidence gathering that can be used to provide effective support for advocacy using an economic, competition or copyright law approach
• Engagement and events with policy makers

Projects/activities should be well defined (time-bound) and produce outputs that can have a measurable and demonstrable policy impact that would not be possible without the Programme’s funding.