Vera Franz

Vera Franz heads the Information Policy and Intellectual Property Reform initiatives at the Open Society Information Program. She has been deeply involved in the launch and development of the global access to knowledge (A2K) movement, and is also working to strengthen civil society advocating for the protection of human rights online. Most recently, she has launched an initiative on genetic information and open society.

During her early years at the Foundations, she taught a course on media, technology, and globalization at the Department of Communications at Salzburg University, Austria. She has written two chapters in Access to Knowledge in the Age of Intellectual Property edited by Gaelle Krikorian and Amy Kapczynski, published by Zone Books/MIT Press in 2010.

Before joining the Open Society Foundations, Franz was affiliated with the Austrian Techno-Z Research and Development Institute, researching information market developments for the European Commission. She has lived in Croatia and Bosnia-Herzegovina, running internet projects for local nongovernmental organizations.

Franz has studied in Canada, Italy, Austria, and the UK and holds an MSc in media and communications from the London School of Economics and a MPhil in political science from Salzburg University, Austria.