This joint statement, released by Research and Innovation stakeholders, calls on the EU institutions to seek a balanced approach to data sharing. It is a response to the European Commission’s proposal for a revision of the Directive on re-use of public sector information (PSI Directive) and the respective ongoing discussions in the European Parliament and Council. The Commission proposes to widen the scope of the Directive by including research data. While the European R&I community is supportive of the European agenda to promote Open Science and innovation, and shares a common commitment to the principle of making research data ‘as open as possible and as closed as necessary’, there is a need to focus on the optimal re-use of research data and not on the (unconditional) opening of such data.