The politics of open knowledge: production, certification, and control

Abstract This article is based on a keynote speech given at the OASPA conference in Leuven on 22 September 2025 critically analyzing the power relations surrounding open knowledge. The central thesis is that what matters is not who owns knowledge, but who can use, produce and evaluate it – depending on social, cultural and financial capital. Without these resources, open knowledge remains available but not equally usable. The core problems lie in knowledge production and evaluation: peer review processes, database indexing and ranking systems determine the visibility and recognition of knowledge. However, the effectiveness of these procedures is the subject of intense debate, as is the inadequate implementation of standards, the indexing of dubious journals and systematic distortions in favor of the Global North, renowned institutions and established publishers. It is therefore less a question of ownership and more a question of power: who can produce knowledge, and who decides on its credibility and dissemination? Political developments are manifesting themselves in cuts to open access budgets, restrictions on access to research data and even the suppression of undesirable knowledge production. In response, ‘dark archives’ (e. g., for arXiv at the TIB; Tobschall et al. 2025) or data backups (e. g., of PubMed by ZB MED) are being created to preserve scientific autonomy. AI also jeopardises open access principles by failing to cite sources when processing open content, which undermines copyright laws. One possible, albeit unrealistic, solution would be for publishers to voluntarily commit to only granting access to AI systems that cite sources correctly. Technical access restrictions for AI would run counter to the very idea of open knowledge. This reveals a fundamental dilemma between regulation and openness. Community-supported frameworks are proposed as a solution, such as a ‘Trusted Open Knowledge’ label that guarantees source references, establishes transparent evaluation and addresses structural inequalities. The central question remains: Who does science serve, and who determines what counts as knowledge?