Project description
A fund for future and robust Internet commons
The Next Generation Internet (NGI) initiative, led by the European Commission, aims to reshape the internet by prioritising values such as privacy, trust, transparency, security, and inclusivity. NGI Zero (NGI0) mechanisms already support researchers, developers, and small teams working on new ideas and technologies related to NGI. The EU-funded NGI0 Commons Fund project aims to advance the NGI vision by developing a technology stack that aligns with humanist values essential for robust democracies, a fair business environment, technological sovereignty, and cross-border collaboration. It intends to improve technology supply chain security, promote inclusive capacity building, transition to a greener tech stack, enhance European competitiveness, and involve the development of open (i.e. commons) standards.
Objective
We propose the logical next step to fulfill the NGI vision of re-imagining and re-engineering the internet. Our overarching goal is to contribute to a future technology stack that reinstates humanist values. We believe this to be vital for a healthy democracy, a level playing field for businesses, technological sovereignty and cross-border collaboration.
The fund will have have a major beneficial impact on society and economy: we improve security and robustness of the overall technology supply chain, build human and institutional capacity in an inclusive way, make the transition to a greener tech stack, increases European competitiveness and strategic autonomy, and (re)establish a prominent role for the commons in standards development. Through our efforts we structure and grow the commons at global scale, together with like-minded actors, and support more pro-active policy making.
We attract, select and support the right people to work on strategic projects – and through that build up and maintain a coherent portfolio aligned with the overall intervention logic of NGI. We continue to operate the agile, effective and low-threshold funding mechanism of NGI0. The past 5 years this has shown to be capable of serving the global talent pool – allowing anyone to contribute to creating and improving digital commons.
We provide multi-disciplinary technical and strategic support from leading domain experts - and thus speed up market readiness. We scale up projects, seeking to mainstream the commons approach everywhere we can. We provide mentorship on open source compatible business models, and set up business circles with successful FOSS entrepreneurs. We provide access to reliable legal infrastructure.
Our work contributes to strengthening the European techno-social ecosystem of the commons, and creating a healthy economic underpinning for long term sustainability. Together with our community our goal is to steer towards the internet our societies deserve.
Fields of science
- natural sciencescomputer and information sciencesinternet
- social scienceseconomics and businessbusiness and managemententrepreneurship
- social sciencespolitical sciencesgovernment systemsdemocracy
- social scienceseconomics and businessbusiness and managementbusiness models
- natural sciencesbiological sciencesecologyecosystems
Programme(s)
Funding Scheme
HORIZON-RIA - HORIZON Research and Innovation ActionsCoordinator
1098XH Amsterdam
Netherlands