NGI Forward is a 3-year project under the Next Generation Internet (NGI) initiative, which commenced in January 2019. NGI Forward is tasked with helping the European Commission set out a strategy, as well as a policy and research agenda for the years ahead.
To build an internet that is more democratic, inclusive and resilient, we need to not just create an ambitious vision for the future, but also identify the concrete technologies and solutions we need to get us there. To do this, NGI Forward’s work focuses on four key areas of activity, which together will form the “engine” of the project: the identification of key topics, consultation, policy and research, and stakeholder engagement.
NGI Forward focus areas:
- Continuous Identification of Key Topics and Stakeholders: Employing cutting-edge data methods such as deep learning, we take a quantitative approach to continuously identify and map early signals of emerging technologies and social issues related to the internet, and the value sets and stakeholder communities surrounding them.
- Developing Research and Policy Roadmaps: We explore the current contexts and possible future trajectories of key areas of focus for the NGI in more depth, as well as identifying associated policy needs. We map out the key social, economic, technological, ethical, political and legal contexts surrounding newly emerging technologies and social issues, and outline research gaps and requirements we need to address in order to push the development of these NGI topics in a human-centric direction.
- Harnessing Collective Intelligence through consultation and semantic social media analysis: Through the creation of the NGI Forward consultation platform, we create an open, vibrant and engaging online community for leading thinkers and stakeholders (as well as the general public) to share their opinions and co-create solutions for the kind of future internet they would like to see.
- Stakeholder engagement: Through continuous engagement with our key NGI stakeholder communities (innovators, researchers, policymakers, and the general public) through in-person events and online consultation, NGI Forward will grow the existing NGI community and involve diverse voices beyond the usual suspects.
NGI Forward consists of a consortium of seven partners: Nesta (London, United Kingdom) is the coordinator of the project, and primarily involved with building the policy agenda and network, DELab (Warsaw, Poland) leads on data-driven analysis, Edgeryders (Brussels and Estonia) are in charge of our consultation platform, Resonance Design (Netherlands) leads on our engagement activities and Aarhus University (Aarhus, Denmark) on the development of our research agenda. Partners City of Amsterdam (Amsterdam, Netherlands) and Nesta Italia (Turin, Italy) organise our two major flagship policy events, to be held in 2020 and 2021 respectively.
NGI FORWARD coordinator: Katja Bego <katja.bego@nesta.org.uk>
Project website: research.ngi.eu
Exchange platform: exchange.ngi.eu
Twitter: @ngiforward