The NLnet Foundation is temporarily pausing new applications for its NGI Zero programmes to evaluate past successes and prepare for upcoming European challenges. This strategic pause allows the organization to assess its impact after nearly a decade of continuous operation and align future efforts with the Tech Sovereignty package, ensuring the initiative remains responsive to evolving digital needs. Crucially for the open data community, this pause does not affect ongoing projects, and specific pilot programs continue to accept submissions. This stability ensures that current data-centric initiatives maintain their momentum. The foundation plans to reopen standard calls in the autumn with new programs under the Open Internet Stack, signaling a transition that will likely continue to support open source and open data development through sustained funding mechanisms. This announcement is relevant to open data because NGI Zero has historically provided essential financial and practical support to open data, hardware, and standards projects. By maintaining support for active grantees while restructuring, NLnet preserves the ecosystem’s integrity. The initiative highlights how targeted funding is vital for overcoming resource barriers in the open internet sector, ensuring that critical open data infrastructure and standards continue to thrive amidst broader geopolitical shifts in technology sovereignty.
Source: apc.orgPublished on 2026-06-17