Magazine

For more than a decade, Europe’s digital landscape grew faster than the rules that governed it. Very large online platforms (VLOPS) and search engines expanded their influence, affecting public debate, information flows, and even personal well-being - yet much of what happened inside these systems remained hidden from scientific scrutiny.  

The EU Digital Services Act (DSA) changes that trajectory. It marks a decisive shift from voluntary commitments to a binding rulebook aimed at strengthening accountability, transparency, and mitigating systemic risks online. 

For researchers, this new framework is more than a regulatory milestone: it opens a historic doorway. This edition of the ERC Magazine explores what it means that scientists, for the first time, have a legal right to access platform data to study how digital ecosystems affect our societies - from the spread of disinformation and the dynamics of polarisation to algorithmic biases and their effects on mental well-being.  

In his editorial, ERC Scientific Council member Gerd Gigerenzer reflects on how regulation opens new pathways for discovery and transparency. Brandi Geurkink, Director of the Coalition for Independent Technology Research, explores what it will take for Article 40 – the provision of the DSA requiring platforms to make public data accessible to researchers – to work in practice, and how stronger data access can support independent digital accountability research in Europe. This potential is also echoed by Alexandre de Streel, Professor of EU Digital Law at the University of Namur and the College of Europe, who argues that by opening up platform data to independent researchers, the DSA gives Europe’s scientific community new capacity to scrutinise how digital platforms shape our societies. Moving from policy to practice, ERC grantees Jana Lasser, Stefano Cresci, Damian Trilling, and Milena Tsvetkova discuss how their work connects with platform accountability, algorithmic fairness, and user well-being.