hello@openfuture.eu
On 22 July, Open Future partnered with Inria to host a workshop at Inria’s Paris offices, exploring a shared EU policy agenda for the knowledge commons. The workshop took place against the backdrop of the European Commission’s consultation around an Open Digital Ecosystem Strategy and the subsequent Tech Sovereignty Package. These initiatives have shaped recent discussions on digital sovereignty.
The session brought together representatives from commons projects, such as Wikipedia and Software Heritage; research institutions including CNRS; organizations such as OpenMined, along with policymakers and allied stakeholders.The workshop addressed a gap in the current EU digital sovereignty debate. While policy attention has focused heavily on open-source software, knowledge commons projects, such as Wikipedia and OpenStreetMap, which are foundational layers of the knowledge infrastructure relied on by both human understanding and AI systems, remain underrepresented. These projects face unique challenges regarding sustainability, licensing, and reciprocity that existing policy frameworks do not adequately address.
Around 20 participants tested a policy taxonomy that was developed collaboratively in the lead-up to the event. They also identified priority advocacy opportunities across EU policy processes and explored the potential for coalition-building across knowledge commons, public institutions, research and science policy communities, and digital sovereignty advocates.
Insights from the discussion will inform our ongoing work with the NGI Commons consortium, including a forthcoming policy brief making the case for knowledge commons as a critical area of focus in EU policy.
