NGI Zero awarded two EC research and innovation actions

11.2 mln euro of funding to go to R&D on privacy, search and discovery

Brussels/Amsterdam, December 1st 2018

NLnet Foundation has been selected to lead a coalition of currently thirteen partners that will coordinate two of the four first Research & Innovation Actions within the Next Generation Internet initiative. Between now and and 2021 a total of 11.2 million euro will be granted to independent researchers and open source developers, with the first projects expected to start as early as March 2019. The calls are open to any individual or organisation (from Europe or potentially beyond) with an idea that contributes to a better internet for everyone, specifically in the two areas of privacy and trust enhancing technologies and search and discovery. More NGI calls are due to launch in February 2019.

Fundamentally better technologies

The internet has grown very important to our societies, but when you look at both the technology and its effects on people at scale there is much to be improved, states Michiel Leenaars, director of strategy at NLnet Foundation and project lead of the NGI Zero consortium. The only way to remedy these issues is to go to work: to do research and develop fundamentally better technologies. That is what we will enable people to do. With our consortium we will support them with, and we hope that people who share our concern and motivation will join us and come "work for the internet".

The call are the first wave of funding to emerge from a genuinely exiting new 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?

NGI Zero consists of a world class coalition of not-for-profit organizations that will 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.