the Economic, Legal, and Political Feasibility of an EU Sovereign Tech Fund (EU-STF)
The report ‘Funding Europe’s Open Digital Infrastructure: The Economic, Legal, and Political Feasibility of an EU Sovereign Tech Fund (EU-STF)’ provides a roadmap for establishing an EU Sovereign Tech Fund to secure and maintain critical open source technologies essential for Europe’s digital sovereignty, cybersecurity/cyber resilience, and competitiveness.
THE REPORT
This report outlines the case for an EU Sovereign Tech Fund (EU-STF) to address chronic underinvestment in open source technologies. By securing, maintaining, and scaling critical open digital infrastructure, the fund would strengthen Europe’s digital sovereignty, cybersecurity, and competitiveness. Drawing on the success of Germany’s Sovereign Tech Fund, it proposes a mission-driven, pan-European model to ensure sustainable and resilient open source ecosystems.
Testimonials
“Open source accelerates innovation across the automotive industry. But to maintain this shared infrastructure at scale, we need strong, reliable public-private collaboration. EU-STF sets exactly the right course.”
“The Sovereign Tech Fund acknowledges a shared European responsibility: to invest in open source as the backbone of innovation, security, and competition. With a proven model in place, we’re proud to take this mission forward with partners across the EU.“
“Current digital infrastructure is to a large degree built on layers and layers of open source, and yet a substantial part of this open source is built and maintained by enthusiasts or other financially and resource-constrained teams. Funding options like the EU-STF proposal can truly help enforce the ecosystem and offer new paths towards sustainability.”
“The creation of a European Sovereign Tech Fund (EU-STF) is an opportunity to experiment with novel governance arrangements for strategic investment in digital infrastructure, in particular open source software maintenance.”
“With over €100 billion of the EU’s GDP attributed to the Open Source Software ecosystem, it is both strategic and economically sound to allocate substantial EU funding toward its maintenance—ideally through a dedicated EU Sovereign Tech Fund (EU-STF).”
“Ensuring the sustainability of open digital infrastructure means resourcing the commons—beyond isolated projects—by strengthening alignment and connection across those who sustain it. The field has evolved significantly since the early groundwork for the Sovereign Tech Fund; today, we have a far richer empirical basis to inform action. The Digital Infrastructure Insights Fund is glad to support research like this study, which helps surface patterns, gaps, and pathways toward more resilient support systems.”
“Open source is the premier strategic tool for strengthening Europe’s digital sovereignty and competitiveness. But as political recognition of its potential for accelerated innovation and the development of European solutions rapidly grows, the long-term maintenance of its global digital foundations must not be overlooked. Open source is 21st century infrastructure – and like all critical infrastructure, it requires investment.”
“Open source is the key to global economic collaboration in a volatile world. We need new, innovative instruments for public-private investment in our common open source infrastructure.“
Nicholas Gates
Nicholas (Nick‘) Gates is a Senior Policy Advisor at OpenForum Europe (OFE), where he works on research and advocacy related to open source software and other open technologies. Nick leads the organisation’s ongoing research efforts, including the organisation of the OpenForum Academy (OFA) Symposium, an annual research conference on open source and open technologies. He also leads OFE’s advocacy work on the NGI Commons and European Open Source Academy initiatives, which are focused on digital commons and public recognition of open source in Europe (respectively). Nick’s expertise is in open source in the public sector, open source for social good, and the funding and sustainability of the open source ecosystem.
Prior to joining OFE, Nick helped launch the Digital Public Finance Hub, a new learning initiative around the digital transformation of public finance, as a consultant at Public Digital. He began his career working on research, policy, and advocacy at the Digital Impact Alliance — conducting research on topics including national digital transformation processes, open source in government, and digital transformation policy — and was a Fellow at the Portulans Institute. Nick holds an undergraduate dual degree from the University of Massachusetts Lowell in Political Science and History, and graduated with an MSc in Global Development from the University of Copenhagen in 2018.
Jennifer Tridgell
Jennifer Tridgell is an Independent Consultant and Ph.D. Candidate at University of Cambridge, where she focuses on the global governance of open-source software. She has almost a decade of experience in international law and human rights, digital policy and diplomacy. She previously was the Senior Legal Advisor to a UN Special Rapporteur, where she led on the mandate’s strategic impact and the development of landmark UN reports including Freedom of Thought. She has worked for leading international firms, the International Criminal Court and human rights NGOs, and has advised major tech companies on legal and regulatory issues. Alongside her award-winning doctoral research, she currently works as an Independent Consultant, advising on cutting-edge technology policy and law issues. She serves on OpenUK’s Legal Advisory Board and the International Law Association’s Executive Council.
Rosa Maria Torraco
Rosa Maria Torraco is a Master’s student in Transnational Governance at the European University Institute, where she is currently conducting research on media pluralism and online disinformation with the support of an EMIF Scholarship. Her academic background includes a Master’s degree in law with distinction from the University of Bologna and an Erasmus+ exchange at Leiden Law School, where she specialized in EU law and technology.
Rosa Maria’s work lies at the intersection of EU digital regulation and policy analysis. She has served as a Research Assistant at the Centre for Media Pluralism and Media Freedom (EUI) and has previously worked at a corporate law firm focusing on media and IT law. She has also held editorial positions as Vice Editor-in-Chief of the Bologna Law Review and International Editor at the Cambridge University Law Review.
Carsten Schwäbe
Dr. Carsten Schwäbe is a Project Manager and Research Associate at Fraunhofer ISI. His research focuses on innovation system analysis, mission-oriented innovation policy, and the governance of socio-technical transformations. He was previously a Research Fellow and postdoctoral researcher at Freie Universität Berlin. Carsten received his PhD at the Chair for Innovation Management with his research on the governance of innovation diffusion for the case of the German power market.
Felix Reda
Felix Reda (he/they) is the Director of Developer Policy at GitHub. He has been shaping digital policy for over ten years, including serving as a Member of the European Parliament from 2014 to 2019 and working with the strategic litigation NGO Gesellschaft für Freiheitsrechte (GFF). His areas of interest encompass copyright reform, freedom of expression, and the sustainability of the open-source ecosystem. Felix is an affiliate of the Berkman Klein Center for Internet and Society at Harvard and serves on the board of the Open Knowledge Foundation Germany. He holds an M.A. in Political Science and Communications Science from the University of Mainz, Germany.
Andreas Hummler
Dr. Andreas Hummler has been working in the Politics and Society Department since 2023 and is a project manager in the Politics for Innovation and Transformation business unit.
From 2021 to 2023, he was responsible for the research area “Economy and the World of Work” at the Bavarian Research Institute for Digital Transformation. Previously, Andreas Hummler was an academic associate and lecturer in economics at the Kehl School of Public Administration. From 2017 to 2021, he was also a member of the Bureau d’Economie Théorique et Appliquée (BETA) at the University of Strasbourg, where he earned his doctorate in economics. In his doctoral thesis, he examined the economic resilience of European regions and identified regional factors that contribute to regional economic adaptability and resilience.
He previously studied the interdisciplinary master’s program “Politics, Economics and Philosophy” at the University of Hamburg and political science at the University of Mannheim. From 2014 to 2015, he worked as an innovation policy consultant at the Association for Shipbuilding and Marine Technology in Hamburg.
His research interests include regional economics, resilience, innovation, and transformation research, as well as econometric methods.
Thomas Streinz
Thomas Streinz has been Joint Chair in Law with interests in regulatory theory and regulatory institutions at the European University Institute’s Law Department and the Robert Schuman Centre for Advanced Studies since January 2025.
Professor Streinz’s current research interests focus on digital governance and global law and technology, in particular the regulation of the global data economy and the governance of digital infrastructures. He leverages insights from the social sciences – in particular science and technology studies, infrastructure studies, media and communication studies, and (critical) data studies – for socio-techno-legal research. His research often necessitates traversing different legal systems, while straddling established boundaries between public and private, law and (technical) standards, and local, state, national, regional, international, and planetary law.
Professor Streinz’s research agenda at the EUI will investigate the role of European law in the global regulatory governance of digital technologies, the relationship between data, tech, and infrastructure regulation, and the interface between regulation through law with governance by other means, in particular infrastructure-as-regulation. He is currently conducting research projects on software regulation, digital infrastructure governance (with a focus on “artificial intelligence” and “cloud computing”), and European and Global Data Law.
As an Adjunct Professor of Law at New York University’s School of Law, Professor Streinz convened colloquia on the regulation of global digital corporations, taught courses on Global Data Law, and conducted interdisciplinary seminars on selected topics in Global Tech Law. Professor Streinz was the inaugural Executive Director of the Guarini Global Law and Tech initiative at NYU Law. As a Fellow at NYU Law’s Institute for International Law and Justice, he has been involved in the MegaReg and InfraReg research projects and maintains connections to these global networks.
Astor Nummelin Carlberg
Astor Nummelin Carlberg is OFE’s Executive Director, responsible for the overall vision, activities of the organisation and policy development. He has extensive experience of European policy making processes, communications and network-building. Astor leads conversations on Europe’s digital challenges and the role of open technologies in achieving its full potential. He sits on the board of APELL, the European Open Source Business Association. Prior to OFE, Astor worked in the European Parliament and he was educated at Middlebury College, the Free University of Berlin and Solvay Business School.
Knut Blind
Knut Blind studied economics, political science, and psychology at Freiburg University. In the course of his studies, he spent one year at Brock University (Canada), where he was awarded a BA. Finally, he took his Diploma in Economics and later his doctoral degree at Freiburg University. Between 1996 and 2010, he joined the Fraunhofer Institute for Systems and Innovation Research, Karlsruhe, Germany, as a senior researcher and at last as head of the Competence Center “Regulation and Innovation”. In April 2006, Knut Blind was appointed Professor of Innovation Economics at the Faculty of Economics and Management at the Berlin University of Technology. Between 2008 and 2016, he also held the endowed chair of standardization at the Rotterdam School of Management of the Erasmus University. From April 2010 to September 2019, he was linked to the Fraunhofer Institute of Open Communication Systems in Berlin. Since October 2019, he has been head of the business unit “Innovation and Regulation” at the Fraunhofer Institute for Systems and Innovation Research. In 2012, he initiated both the Berlin Innovation Panel and the German Standardization Panel. Besides numerous articles on patents, he published further contributions on standardization and further innovation aspects in refereed journals.
OpenForum Europe
European University Institute
Fraunhofer ISI
GitHub
Digital Infrastructure Insights Fund
Europe’s digital infrastructure relies heavily on underfunded Open Source projects maintained by small, resource-constrained teams, an effort prominent open source maintainer for the cURL project, Daniel Stenberg, supports.
Europe’s push for digital sovereignty must go beyond building domestic alternatives by strategically investing in open source as critical open digital infrastructure — a move essential to reducing dependency, increasing autonomy and resilience, strengthening cybersecurity, and ensuring long-term competitiveness through an EU-wide Sovereign Tech Fund.
Europe’s automotive industry increasingly depends on Open Source as the foundation of software-defined vehicles, yet critical projects remain underfunded and maintained by overstretched volunteer teams. This has prompted automotive leader Mercedes-Benz to support the call for an EU-wide Sovereign Tech Fund to secure resilient open software infrastructure, accelerate innovation, and strengthen Europe’s technological sovereignty.
New fund should be set up to help maintain critical open-source components to avoid another Log4j-style security nightmare.
Europe’s digital sovereignty and cybersecurity depend on maintaining the open source software that underpins our economies, yet it remains chronically underfunded; a new study outlines how the EU can scale Germany’s successful Sovereign Tech Agency into an EU-wide Sovereign Tech Fund to secure this critical infrastructure.
This session examines the proposed EU Sovereign Tech Fund (EU-STF), a mechanism inspired by Germany’s Sovereign Tech Agency to address critical maintenance gaps in open source components underpinning European digital infrastructure.
Date: 26.08.2025 at 11:00-11:40 EST
Location: Amsterdam, Netherlands
Hosted by: The Linux Foundation
Organisers
Lead author Nicholas Gates will present the findings of the report at the OFA Symposium 2025 in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil.
Date: 19.11.2025
Location: Rio de Janeiro, Brazil
Hosted by: OpenForum Europe
Organisers
With Europe’s push for digital sovereignty accelerating, OpenForum Europe made an initial for an EU Sovereign Tech Fund (EU-STF) to secure and maintain the open source infrastructure that underpins Europe’s economy, cybersecurity, and competitiveness—turning political ambition into long-term investment in Europe’s digital resilience.
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