About

The current situation

Internet becomes ever more important for the lives of any human on this planet. It creates new business opportunities and new social paradigms for interaction, from the local to the planetary scale.

Whereas many of the Internet developments have surpassed any expectations in terms of benefits for the citizens and the economy, there are some reasons for concern about further progress. In particular, the concentration of power in the hands of a few companies, and the relative lack or abandon of control of citizens on their own personal data, together with restrictions on Internet access because of geographical, economic or cultural reasons raise concerns.

The vision

The Internet of the future should be more open, provide better services, more intelligence, greater involvement and participation. It needs to reflect the European social and ethical values: free, open and more interoperable.
Read more about the NGI vision in the NGI study interim report and have a look at the exciting final outcomes of the NGI Study.

What we want to achieve

The Next Generation Internet (NGI) should offer more to our society. It should provide better services and greater involvement and participation. It is essential that the next-generation Internet is designed for humans, so that it can meet its full potential for the society and economy. The scope of the European initiative should be broad, addressing technological opportunities arising from advances in various research fields, extending from new network architectures and software-defined infrastructures to new concepts for services and applications.

Steps towards the Next Generation Internet

The European Commission aims to shape the internet of the future as a powerful, open, data-driven, user-centric, interoperable platform ecosystem. Preparations for the Next Generation Internet initiative include:

  • An open consultation that took place from 14 November 2016 until 9 January 2017. The results of the consultation have been summarised in a report.
  • several specific workshops to share expert insights and build content and credibility are taking place
  • a NGI study was launched to develop a NGI vision and analyse the current needs of the humans and how to deal with in a future human-centric internet
  • building a NGI ecosystem - be part of it and register in our interactive NGI stakeholder map
  • NGI Contact Points in Member states and associated countries are implemented
  • to identify specific research topics and to create an ecosystem of relevant stakeholders NGI is now supported by the ongoing NGI projects 
  • The call ICT-24-2018: NGI-An open internet initiative is open now. It contains 3 Research and innovation actions and 3 Coordination and support actions to ensure a human centric internet.
  • The call ICT-31-2018: EU-US collaboration on NGI is also open. It contains 2 Coordination and support actions to strengthen the relationship with the US ecosystem working in line with the aims of NGI and to exchange knowledge.

To be always up to date please follow us on twitter @NGI4eu.