Next Generation Internet. Open Source and Internet Commons for Europe’s Digital Sovereignty (NGI Commons)

The main ambition of the NGI Commons project is to help the efforts of the Next Generation Internet program to integrate and align with national and European digital commons policies. The project seeks to develop a long-term strategy for the digital commons as an essential piece for building digital sovereignty and trust, helping to overcome fragmentation and bridging the gap between bottom-up initiatives and top-down sovereignty policies.

The role of the CIS will be to elaborate governance models for future digital commons that integrate European policies of strategic autonomy and aim for maintenance and sustainability in order to ensure the growth and longevity of the digital commons while respecting digital sovereignty , the political values of common goods and fundamental rights. In the initial phase, this task will review and categorize existing governance models; on this basis, we will develop a typology of governance models and assess their strengths and weaknesses. Governance models include legal and regulatory frameworks, licensing, public and private partnerships, funding sources, social arrangements, technical architecture choices and possibly other arrangements to be identified. In a later phase, the task will identify the governance archetypes best suited to ensure maximum impact and sustainability of digital commons initiatives. Particular attention will be paid to the long-term sustainability, maintenance and security capacity of the digital commons, as well as their overall contribution to EU digital sovereignty, and to the creation and maintenance of public digital infrastructure.

The CIS has recruited a postdoctoral researcher for 35 months from February 1, 2024, Valérian Guillier, supervised by Mélanie Dulong de Rosnay and Francesca Musiani.