Build a Better Internet

Deadline: 2020-06-03
Award: €100,000
Open to: EU Entities*

Nesta-led Next Generation Internet (NGI) Forward team launches a fund offering grants of up to €25,000, of a total fund of €100,000, to ideas for an experimental policy intervention or practical tool that could help empower governments to build a more democratic and trustworthy internet.

The internet can be a force for positive change in the world. But not enough is being done to tap into the great, ever-expanding potential of connected technologies. From the internet’s underlying infrastructure to the gatekeepers that decide what content is shared, power over the internet is increasingly centralised. A small number of players, representing a fraction of the world’s population and diversity, are incentivised to protect their position through behaviour that has a long-term negative impact on social trust and cohesion, competition and innovation. This means that fewer and fewer people are able to reap the full benefits of the digital economy. Fewer still believe that it works in their interest.

There is consensus that a serious and co-ordinated response is needed to remedy the internet’s many problems, yet the tools to take effective action are not yet available. Some of these challenges require top-down interventions on the global or national level. But to make the NGI Forward a success, more action at the local level and the mobilisation of the whole innovation ecosystem is needed.