No UK small-grants vehicle for public-interest internet technology (NGI analogue)

The EU's Next Generation Internet initiative distributed around €140m to more than 1,200 projects in small, low-bureaucracy cascade grants, largely through NLnet, for privacy tech, open protocols and digital commons. The Commission then dropped NGI from the Horizon Europe 2025 work programme. UK developers had already lost easy access after Brexit, and no domestic substitute exists at the €5k to €50k grant size where most independent maintainers and public-interest tools live. UK civil-society funders explicitly treat technology as unfundable infrastructure, per Careful Industries in December 2025, and the Nesta and National Lottery digital funds have closed. Careful Industries has floated a Civic Technology Fund concept, and nobody has built it.

Small fast grants are the proven mechanism behind much of Europe's privacy and protocol innovation. With the EU spigot and UK philanthropy both closed, an entire tier of public-interest tooling now has no funder in the UK at all.

A pooled DSIT and philanthropy fund making £10k to £75k grants with NLnet-style lightweight process, aimed at privacy-enhancing tech, open protocols, accessibility and digital commons, hosted by an existing intermediary such as ODI or Nesta to avoid new-institution overhead.

// Build now: First artefact: philanthropic pilot grant round with NLnet-style process hosted at ODI/Nesta; DSIT co-funding can follow.

The EU cascade-grant spigot and UK philanthropy closed together, leaving small public-interest tooling with no domestic funder, and the NLnet model is proven and cheap to host.