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Rh 3. Concluding remarks: research commons in an evolutionary perspective

This chapter has proposed a critical appraisal of the main economic issues concerning the proposal and design of contractually-constructed research commons. These initiatives represent a step ahead in the debate that characterizes the expansion of exclusionary and proprietary strategies in research and innovation activities. However, the main economic questions that address the necessity and viability of contractually-based research commons are basically the same scholars have posed at the outset of the enclosure movement occurring to science and information resource for the last two decades. In the new scenario of proliferating exclusive rights, are agents learning to use their contractual freedom to put forward research projects and innovation activities? Conversely, are there reasons to fear that transaction costs, strategic behaviour and cognitive biases will stifle the opportunities for exchanging and integrating knowledge?

The three economic arguments presented in this chapter try to respond to these questions and consequently address the necessity and future sustainability of contractually-based research commons. The issue concerning the increased transaction costs and the evidence of an anti-commons tragedy is probably a foundational one. In this context, two main facts emerge. First, although there is evidence of frictions caused by proliferating property rights and exclusionary strategies, agents have already started adopting private arrangements to cope with the new restrictive legal rules. Arguably, these strategies represent alternative institutional solutions that will compete with the initiatives for adoption of contractually-based research commons. Secondly, although there is little evidence of an anti-commons tragedy, the works surveyed clearly show the emergence of an informal research commons based on informal research exemption, mutual non-enforcement or simply transactions taking place without entering into any formal legal undertakings.

This latter point is particularly relevant for justifying contractually-based research commons as a new governance structure in research activities based on a weakly tied network organisation of exchanges. Indeed, the theoretical examination of commons-based peer production models described in the second economic argument points out the benefits for formalising the informal commons through standard contractual regimes. Further, it also highlighted how this new form of governance structure could be effective