Areas of special interest

Since 1997 NLnet has been providing funding to a large diversity of efforts that all somehow improve the internet. These strategic efforts take place at many different layers of technology — from better software that offers security by design to more trustworthy (open) hardware, from differential privacy to redesigning core technical protocols. NLnet believes the internet is for end users, but there are many interests and invisible hands in the market that push it in other directions — meaning continuous effort is needed to take care the internet evolves in the right direction.

In order to cater for that wide spectrum of ideas and challenges, our preferred instrument is the competitive open call. (your donation helps to fuel those open calls!)

Sometimes a more targeted approach is required. Pending availability of such funds we may put in targetted effort in areas of specific interest. Such a focus can help increase critical mass, and increase the impact of projects even further.

We also can operate regional funds, donor advised funds as well as Named Funds.

Current thematic funds

NGI Zero Commons Fund

The goal of the NGI0 Commons Fund is to help deliver, mature and scale building blocks for the digital commons to help restore public ownership of the internet. We support free and open source projects across the whole technology spectrum, from libre silicon to middleware, from P2P infrastructure to convenient end user applications. We need your contributions to help reshape the state of play, and create an open, trustworthy and reliable internet for all.

Between February 2024 and 2027 we offer R&D grants between 5.000 to 50.000 euro with rolling open calls every two months. A scale-up programme is available for projects with proven potential. Interested? Continue reading about NGI0 Commons Fund, or propose a project.

Open Social Fund

The goal of the Open Social Fund is to help to restore balance in the social media landscape of today and tomorrow. By redecentralising this part of the internet and handling the functionality required as a native part of the world wide web, we help make this technology to be more robust and healthier for users. NLnet has historically supported research and development of many W3C ActivityPub related efforts, and will continue to do so in the foreseeable future. The Open Social Fund is intended to be complementary to the funding of R&D work, funding auxiliary efforts not within the scope of our larger funds like NGI0 Commons Fund, and the work done in Fediversity.

NGI Fediversity Fund

NGI Fediversity aims to bring easy-to-use, hosting/cloud services with service portability and personal freedom at their core to everyone. As a pilot from the Next Generation Internet initiative, Fediversity wants to provide everyone with high-quality, secure IT systems for everyday use. Without tracking, without exploitation, in a way that runs everywhere and scales effortlessly. Fediversity is based on NixOS, a disruptive Linux distribution with a unique approach to package and configuration management. Built on top of the functional Nix package manager, NixOS can be configured in a completely declarative manner, which makes upgrading systems reliable, and has many other advantages. Because it is reproducible, it is ideally suited for complex deployment scenario's where consistent behaviour, stability and configurability matter. As a part of the NGI Fediversity pilot, a dedicated grant programme is available.

NGI Mobifree Fund

Mobile devices like phones and tablets have become pervasive: they are our gateway to the world at large, function as an external brain and are increasingly part of even our most intimate moments. People should therefore be far more empowered when it comes to such a critical dependency. As a pilot from the Next Generation Internet initiative, Mobifree is designed to push more openness into the Android ecosystem, hopefully contributing to a virtuous cycle of innovation through free and open source software, libre hardware and open standards. Mobifree is an R&D programme bringing together a number of "movers and shakers" of the Android ecosystem, in order to deliver a comprensive development effort and advance a number of free and open source technologies. As a part of the NGI Mobifree pilot, a dedicated grant programme is available.

NGI TALER Fund

In the digital economy, payments play a critical role. Yet online payment systems tend to allow for far less privacy than paying with a bank note or coins, especially when using proprietary solutions like Google Pay or Apple Pay. When interacting with the offline economy comes into play, the alternative of paying with all kind of volatile cryptocurrencies isn't a viable option either. NGI TALER is a programme funded by the European Commission and the Swiss State to roll out a new electronic payment system that benefits everyone: people, merchants, banks, financial authorities, auditors and anti-corruption researchers.

The project doesn't have to start from scratch either, but builds on the strong foundations of GNU Taler — the privacy-preserving digital payment system developed by the GNU community and Taler Systems SA. This offers privacy for those that make payments, while enforcing transparency on those that sell. By providing micro payments at very low overhead, GNU Taler permits internet business models to shift away from advertising revenue or subscription models, especially for online publishers. No-risk transactions can lower transaction fees and open online payments for the underbanked population and citizens marginalized from digitalisation. As a part of the NGI TALER pilot, a dedicated grant programme is available.

NGI Zero Review

NGI Zero Review is a three year support programme not offering money, but various targeted services to free and open source projects within the Next Generation Internet initiative. Goal is to improve the quality and inclusiveness of these projects, and make them more sustainable where possible by supporting the most promising ideas to live up to high standards (sometimes called 'walk the talk') in terms of security, privacy, accessibility, open source licensing compliance, standardisation, etc. NGI Zero Review runs until 2025

Research and Higher Education Technology Fund

Financial cuts and the 'publish or perish' paradigm are increasingly impacting the capability of the research and education community to contribute to the future of the internet - while the internet needs their talent and ideas more than ever. The Research and Higher Education Technology Fund was created to help fund small initiatives that can make a noticeable difference to the users and providers of Research and Education networks. more >

We have more excellent projects requesting money than we can afford. If you or your organisation have means to support these activities, let us know. NLnet welcomes your targeted donations of any size to let us help more projects. We have many interesting projects coming to us outside of our current themes (courtesy of a really open call), but we understand that not every project fits with every donor. By supporting a dedicated fund, NLnet guarantees that your money will only go to projects in your specific area of interest. NLnet is a charity established since 1997, with its head office in Amsterdam. NLnet foundation is recognised by the Netherlands tax authorities, and your donations are likely tax deductible.

Please contact us for more information.

Regional funds

NLnet itself chooses to fund globally, because technology is a global phenomenon — stimulating open technology is important for humans across all geographic, social and cultural barriers. However, building local capacity and skills in your own commuity can be a very legimitate concern of a donor. If you want to give back to your own community by means of your will, and yet want to maximise the benefit for the rest of the planet, NLnet can help by creating a regional fund. NLnet will earmark the money you bequeath, and guarantees it will be spent on projects in the region of your choice. Because NLnet is a registered charity, your donation gets the most friendly fiscal treatment.

There is a good legal basis in EU case law for cross-border charitable donation and tax-relief — Persche (C-318/07, also Official Journal of the EU):

Where a taxpayer claims, in a Member State, the deduction for tax purposes of gifts to bodies established and recognised as charitable in another Member State, such gifts come within the compass of the provisions of the EC Treaty relating to the free movement of capital, even if they are made in kind in the form of everyday consumer goods.

If you want to establish a regionally focussed fund related to open technnology, or donate to an existing regional fund, please contact Bob Goudriaan or Michiel Leenaars.

Named funds

Do you want to promote the technical and social values you have after your life? If you want to "pay it forward" and enable exiting new ideas and talented and dedicated people of all ages to contribute to the open internet and open source technology, NLnet can help by creating a Named fund. Because NLnet is a registered charity, the legacy you leave benefits from very favourable tax conditions allowing to maximise the impact of your fund.

There is a good legal basis in EU case law for cross-border charitable donation and tax-relief — Persche (C-318/07, also Official Journal of the EU):

Where a taxpayer claims, in a Member State, the deduction for tax purposes of gifts to bodies established and recognised as charitable in another Member State, such gifts come within the compass of the provisions of the EC Treaty relating to the free movement of capital, even if they are made in kind in the form of everyday consumer goods.

If you want to establish a Named fund related to open technnology, or donate to an existing Named fund in honour of that person, please contact Bob Goudriaan or Michiel Leenaars.

Funds in concluding phase

The following thematic funds are still active in the sense that there are ongoing projects but they are no longer accepting new proposals.

NGI Zero Core Fund (Running but no more open calls)

Do you want to help create an open, trustworthy and reliable internet for all, and have an idea to for instance develop alternatives and improvements to core internet hardware, software and protocols which make the internet more robust, or which removes gatekeepers, choke points and surveillance capabilities? Are you working on security, privacy, interoperability, high availability and scalability of decentralised technologies which will allow everyone to benefit from both 'local first' and from economies of scale without unnecessary centralisation?

NGI Zero Core runs from 2023 to December 2026. There are ongoing projects but there will be no more open calls.

NGI Zero Entrust Fund (Running but no more open calls)

Reliability, confidentiality, integrity, security and data portability should be the 'new normal' of the internet, something ordinary users should not have to worry about ߞ users should be in control. But how do we achieve trustworthiness and data sovereignty? Can your idea help strenghten the position of end users, do you have ideas on how to improve the status quo on the internet and make it more resilient, transparent and open?

NGI Zero Entrust runs from 2022 to 2025. There are ongoing projects but there will be no more open calls.

User-operated Internet Fund — paused

The best thing about the internet is that we are all connected, but hand in hand with that comes its organic and decentralised nature that caters for disruptive innovation and diversity. From the edges inwards, users themselves can collectively own, operate and rewrite every aspect of the technology and infrastructure they depend on. Once you are able to connect even to a single other user, you are free to do within that connection what you want and wherever your skills and imagination can take you. This important empowering property of self-determination is unfortunately not cast in stone — the internet has no coordinated defense mechanisms built in against hostile take-overs or unethical behaviour, so it is up to the community to organise itself and keep the internet open. A healthy, resilient, sustainable and fair internet for everyone is not created by any individual private or public entity, but by its users. Want to contribute? Please donate to the User-Operated Internet Fund. Due to the lack of available budget, no new project proposals are accepted. Please consider one of our other funds.

Retired funds

The following thematic funds have been completed, and there are neither projects running nor new projects being accepted. Not because the topics are not important anymore in this day and age, but because we do not currently have any budget specifically earmarked for proposals within these topics. We do welcome proposals for our open call, as well as donations that would allow us to revitalise one or more of these thematic funds.

Internet Hardening — until 2023

Whistleblower Edward Snowden in 2013 revealed a whole new dark dimension of the internet, where pervasive monitoring at a scale that was unimaginable is just the starting point of many other threats. In response, the IETF (the standards body behind the internet) firmly stated that it considers the internet to be "under technical attack". In other circumstances, one might want to drop the whole technology, but this is not easy because the internet has become a critical infrastructure for society. It is therefore vital to adequately address that attack, and revisit the security and privacy properties of the internets underpinning standards. The Internet Hardening Fund is aimed at funding such efforts to help the internet forward - by improving its security, reliability and trustworthiness. By rewriting or replacing standards where necessary, and by make sure that those standards are actually deployed. For that, you can apply to the Internet Hardening Fund.

NGI Assure Fund — until 2024

The internet lies at the heart of our modern economies and societies, but it was not designed to be used in the way we use it now. Additional innovations are needed, in particular to make usage of remote resources on the internet more trustworthy and secure. The goal of NGI Assure is to support projects that design and engineer reusable building blocks for the Next Generation Internet as part of a complete, strong chain of assurances for all stakeholders regarding the source and integrity of identities, identifiers, data, cyberphysical systems, service components and processes.

Read more about the NGI Assure Fund or check out the projects which were supported.

NGI Assure was made possible with financial support from the European Commission's Next Generation Internet programme, under the aegis of DG Communications Networks, Content and Technology under grant agreement No 957073.

Privacy & Trust Fund (NGI Zero) — until 2022

Many technologies in popular use were never designed with privacy, security or even extensibility in mind, or failed to fundamentally address key issues at the design phase. The research topic of Privacy and Trust enhancing technologies is aimed at providing people with new instruments that allow them more agency - and assist us with fulfilling the human need of keeping some private and confidential context and information private and confidential.

Read more about the Privacy & Trust Fund or check out the projects which were supported between 2018 and 2022.

NGI0 PET was made possible with financial support from the European Commission's Next Generation Internet programme, under the aegis of DG Communications Networks, Content and Technology, under Horizon 2020 grant agreement No 825310.

Search and Discovery Fund (NGI Zero) — until 2022

How we store, annotate, retrieve and analyse information shapes our societies and economies in a very concrete and systematic sense of the term, and has a major impact on our collective and individual view of the world. How do we make sure that the core human values we hold high as society are strenghtened by technology rather than anything else? Do you have an idea in the area of search and discovery? Between 2018 and 2022 we were able to award projects 5.000 to 50.000 euro (and potentially even more) to contribute to research and open source development in this field. Interested to see what the outcomes were? Continue reading about the Search & Discovery Fund or check out the projects currently supported within this topic.

NGI0 Discovery was made possible with financial support from the European Commission's Next Generation Internet programme, under the aegis of DG Communications Networks, Content and Technology, under Horizon 2020 grant agreement No 825322.

Real-time communication

There are many separate high-quality techologies and services available for people to communicate across the internet live, but the development is significantly hindered by the fragmentation of the market. We need the internet model applied to unlock the potential of the internet for this crucial human need. more >

Open Document Format

The Open Document Format is an important enabler for innovation in the area of productivity and security. Open Standards are the only way to retain our documents for the future. more >

DNSSEC

Domain name technology is at the core of the way people use the internet. DNSSEC is a core technology for safer internet usage, and the key to new exciting technologies for years to come. more >