About NGI Zero

Paving the way to the Next Generation Internet

Map of Europe overlayed with hexes of NGI Zero projects

Image: Daniel Thompson-Yvetot, entire attribution.

The internet has grown very important to our societies, but there is much to be improved — and in many places we need fundamentally better technologies to protect our security, our privacy and our way of life. NGI Zero is a joint not-for-profit effort by a coalition of organisations that supports the development of technology commons as building blocks for the Next Generation Internet initiative. NGI Zero is led by NLnet foundation, a public benefit organisation established by pioneers of the European internet to support the development of an open information society.

NGI Zero supports strategic technology R&D, more in particular the development of free/libre/open source software and hardware, and the establishment of open standards and open data - technologies that can be used, studied, modified and shared by anyone for any purpose. Through these five programmes a total of over 50 million euro is being granted to hundreds of independent researchers and open source developers working on a better internet. Another programme — NGI Zero Review — supports the wider NGI community with various services that help to mature these technology commons.

NGI Zero grant programmes

The current grant programmes run by NGI Zero are:

NGI0 Commons Fund
Reclaim the public nature of the internet
Small and medium-sized R&D grants between 5.000 and 50.000 euro, with the possibility to scale up. Available to both individuals and organisations of any type. You can apply at any time in the rolling open calls with a deadline every two months.
NGI0 Core
Moving the architecture of the Internet and openness of technology forward
A light-weight grant programme available to both individuals and organisations of any type. The programme's final call has closed but development of funded projects is ongoing. Check out the ongoing projects funded by NGI0 Core.
NGI0 Entrust
Trustworthiness and Data Sovereignty
A light-weight grant programme available to both individuals and organisations of any type. The programme's final call has closed but development of funded projects is ongoing. Check out the ongoing projects funded by NGI0 Entrust.

Support services offered by NGI Zero

NGI Zero Review
Supporting quality and maturity of digital commons
The NGI Zero coalition offers support services to free and open source projects such as accessibility and security audits, community building and mentoring, copyright and license due diligence, packaging and more. Note that this fund is only open to projects which have received funding within the Next Generation Internet initiative.

NGI Zero channels

Come talk to us on Mastodon
Subscribe to the NGI Zero newsletter with contributions from the coalition partners
Listen to the NGI Zero podcast
Watch the recordings of NGI Zero webinars on our Big Blue Button platform

Next Generation Internet initiative

NGI Zero is part of a key initiative by the European Commission centered around establishing a Next Generation Internet. This "internet of the future" should be able to address the many security, privacy and operational issues of todays internet. If we have the freedom to re-imagine and re-engineer the internet, how can we make a future version of it be more inclusive and bring out the best in all of us? For some insights into the impact of the NGI initiative, see the 2024 study by Gartner Europe.

Previous grant programmes run by NGI Zero:

NGI0 PET^note
Privacy and Trust Enhancing Technologies
Check out the overview of projects.
Download discover free, reliable software such as Cryptpad, Sylk, WireGuard and EteSync.
NGI0 Discovery^note
Search, discovery and discoverability
Check out the overview of projects.
Learn about free, interesting new tools such as Searx, F-Droid, Pixelfed and Open Food Facts.

Note that if you are interested in NGI Zero, you also might be interested in NGI Assure. NGI Assure was a programme that ran from 2020 to 2024, with the aim to make the internet more reliable and trustworthy through open source building blocks that provide strong assurances. Check out the list of projects that took place within the scope of NGI Assure.

More about NGI Assure

Who is behind NGI Zero?

NGI0 consists of a world class coalition of not-for-profit organizations that support the researchers and developers with their expertise on security and code quality, accessibility (making technology available to everyone, including people with disabilities), localisation/internationalisation (to increase language diversity on the internet), packaging and reproducible builds, documentation, responsible disclosure, diversity, community building and more.

See all the coalition partners involved across all programmes. Or check out the partners per programme below.

Free resources from NGI Zero

Best practices for secure, accessible, localized, inclusive technology

While the focus of NGI Zero is on producing relevant technological building blocks, we are happy to share the things we learned too. The lessons learned and best practices developed by NGI Zero are publicly available for everyone to learn from and build on. Below you can find the currently available documentation. We will keep this this page up to date when new content becomes available, so you why not bookmark this page: