Transitioning from NGI to Open Internet Stack — open calls temporarily paused

NLnet conducted and contributed the foundational study Next Generation Internet 2025 together with Gartner Europe in 2017-2018, and has been operating a comprehensive series of ambitious grant making programmes within the NGI initiative non-stop as of later that same year. So far, from almost 8500 applications across five NGI Zero programmes a total of 1215 projects were funded — and another 215 projects came from almost two thousand applications through adjacent NGI programmes involving NLnet. The next phase of NGI will be its transition into the so called "Open Internet Stack", which is part of the new Tech Sovereignty package of the European Commission. Before we move ahead full steam with a new large initiative partially modelled after and building on this vast effort, we believe we should properly invest time and energy in closing off the current concluding chapter, and learn what is to be learned — so we can do even better in the future. After nearly ten years of uninterrupted operation of back-to-back NGI calls, NLnet will therefore temporarily pause its open calls in order to take stock of NGI Zero — and prepare for the new challenges that come with the Open Internet Stack initiative. We'll continue to help the community to develop trustworthy, resilient and sustainably open technologies — but we also need to play into (and benefit as much as possible from) the new opportunities that today's political awareness for digital sovereignty and strategic development of technology brings.