What’s the project about?
As a think tank and civil society organisation, Commons network has been working on Digital Commons and sustainable knowledge management for 10 years, and has a rich international network of thinkers, academics, policymakers and practitioners on the subject. In our Transition workshops, we explore models for the new economy and provide tools and insights for governments and civil society.
Commons Network is working with the Ministry of Internal Affairs on the Digital Commons Transition Collaboratory in 2024. The main question is clear: what are Digital Community Goods and how can government relate to them?
Activities:
Public meeting April 25: Building Digital Commons – towards a shared, collaborative and sovereign internet. Sophie Bloemen (Commons Network) and Koos Steenbergen (Ministry of Internal Affairs) will talk with Daphne Muller, of the successful open source collaborative platform Nextcloud, with Fabrizia Benini, on the European Digital Commons NGI project and Aik van Eemeren, strategist of digital innovation at Gemeente Amsterdam. Starts at 3:00 PM The Hague.
In the Digital Commons Transition Collaboratory we develop ideas with partners, build bridges between research, society and policy, and work together towards a sustainable digital transition. The Transition Collaboratory is partly an exploration of possible policy directions and partly knowledge and network building where we also want to contribute to the broader societal conversation.
Expert Workshop: EDIC for Digital Commons
Explainers: Accessible 5-pagers in which we concisely discuss the building blocks of Digital Commons and Digital Public Infrastructure, and the possible role(s) of government, using appealing examples.
Read the first explainer:
Read the second explainer:
Newsletters: We accompany the process through the monthly Digital Commons newsletter, in which we look back at previous steps, share Explainers and make announcements of upcoming events. Are you interested? Sign up to the newsletter by sending an email to digitalcommons@commonsnetwork.org .
Policy recommendations briefings: We incorporate the insights from the research and from the discussions and workshops with experts and ministries into a series of policy recommendations briefings, in which we elaborate on ideal types and funding policy conditions, and the relationship with existing legal and regulatory frameworks.
Project lead: Sophie Bloemen
Run time: January 2024 – Present
Other resources:
Our work on Humans of Digital Transformation
Our publication on the need for generative interoperability to build public and civic digital spaces.