OTR Newsletter #2: Draft Research Agenda and Call for Proposals Launching on 18 May

Open Technology Research has been heads-down, focusing on developing its Research Agenda. Building our latest round of consultations, we are doing more follow-up with policymakers and past participants of the OFA Symposium, seeking to better right-size our assumptions and build a draft agenda that works for people.

We have also been working to scope the next Open Technology Research Symposium, and the venue will be announced soon. Both the draft Research Agenda and the Call for Proposals for the next Open Technology Research Symposium will be launched on 18 May 2026.

In the meantime, we’ve aggregated some of the latest news, reports, and ideas in open technology from across the globe below.

New Open Technologies News

Kenya Launches OSPO to Build Sovereign Digital Infrastructures (27 March 2026)– Kenya has launched Africa’s first national Open Source Programme Office (OSPO) to drive adoption of open source software and build sovereign digital infrastructure. → Read more

Expansion of the Digital Commons EDIC (30 March 2026)– The Digital Commons EDIC has expanded to twelve participating countries, appointed Laurent Rojey as its first Director, and launched initial projects, including an EU Sovereign Tech Fund (EU-STF) pilot in collaboration with Germany's Sovereign Tech Agency. → Read more

Digital Public Goods Alliance roadmap incorporates UNESCO Open Solutions (8 April 2026) – UNESCO's Open Solutions have been included in the Digital Public Goods Alliance roadmap, with activities focused on advancing open educational resources, equitable access to knowledge ecosystems, open research data, and free and open source software. → Read more

Open Source, After Mythos (9 April 2026) – Following news that Anthropic's unreleased Claude Mythos model can detect hundreds of vulnerabilities in key open source software, IBM has entered the ensuing community debate, arguing that as AI becomes critical infrastructure, openness is no longer optional but a design requirement. → Read more

The Government of France ditches Windows for Linux (10 April 2026) – France is moving away from Microsoft Windows. The country is planning to move its government computers, currently running Windows, to the open source operating system Linux, in order to further reduce its reliance on U.S. technology. → Read more

NVIDIA Launches Ising, the World’s First Open AI Models to Accelerate the Path to Useful Quantum Computers (14 April 2026)– NVIDIA launched Ising, the world's first family of open source quantum AI models, which delivers state-of-the-art quantum processor calibration and error correction — up to 2.5x faster and 3x more accurate than existing tools — with broad adoption already underway across leading research institutions and quantum computing companies. → Read more

OSI Welcomes New Executive Director Duane O’Brien (15 April 2026) – The Open Source Initiative has appointed Duane O'Brien as its new Executive Director to lead the organisation through key priorities, including the evolution of the Open Source AI Definition, expanded policy engagement, and continued stewardship of the Open Source Definition. → Read more

DeepSeek unveils new AI model tailored for Huawei chips as China pushes for tech autonomy (26 April 2026) – DeepSeek's new V4 model – notable for being trained on Huawei's Ascend chips rather than Nvidia hardware – launched as an open-source preview that leads all open models on world-knowledge benchmarks, handles over one million token context windows at a fraction of competitors' compute costs, and further narrows the gap with closed frontier models, all while underscoring China's accelerating push for AI self-sufficiency amid US export controls. → Read more

New Open Technologies Reports and Research

International Comparative Study Report on Open Source Software Publication Activities by Governments (March 2026)

This report presents a quantitative analysis of GitHub data to examine how government OSS releases vary across countries and regions. It analyses repositories from public institutions in Japan, Estonia, Singapore, Germany, France, the United Kingdom, and the United States, using metrics such as repository count, pull requests, and stars. The findings highlight cross-country differences in OSS activity and their relationship to policy. → Read more

Academic Open Source Program Offices in France (March 2026)

France's first academic Open Source Program Office launched at Université Grenoble Alpes in September 2025, prompting a national workshop to define a framework for future academic OSPOs — concluding they should sit within research divisions, cover all disciplines, and offer services spanning legal support, training, community management, and technology transfer. → Read more

Making Sense of Openness in AI (March 2026)

Presented at George Washington University’s OSCON, this preliminary research explores how the theory of boundary objects applies to openness in AI and presents data on AI models using the word “open” in their releases. It provides evidence-based recommendations for engagement with policymakers and contributes to ongoing efforts to support the adoption of the Open Source AI Definition (OSAID) in practice and policy. → Read more

Sustaining Open Source Software in the Research Enterprise (March 2026)

This report summarises findings from an Ithaka S+R workshop on sustaining open source research software in the research enterprise. Open source research software is essential to modern science but is often undervalued and underfunded. Key challenges include weak incentives for researchers, a lack of stable funding, and limited institutional support. Sustainability requires recognising software as a core research output and improving coordination across institutions.  → Read more

Public Sector Open Source Program Offices - Archetypes for how to Grow (Common) Institutional Capabilities (March 2026)

Open Source Software (OSS) is a crucial component of over 90% of digital infrastructure underpinning industry and public digital services, facilitating collaborative software development and dissemination. This study aims to explore how the adoption, development, and collaboration on Open Source Software OSS can be enabled through organisational support functions or centres of competency, also known as Open Source Programme Offices (OSPOs) within Public Sector Organisations (PSOs) in the European Union, Norway, Liechtenstein, and Iceland. → Read more

Sovereign Data Commons and Public Data Infrastructure (April 2026)

Europe has invested heavily in digitising cultural heritage, producing research data, and building common data spaces. Yet the long-term infrastructure needed to store, steward, and provide durable access to these publicly funded assets largely does not exist. This policy brief identifies this missing infrastructure layer and proposes how to fill it. → Read more

Tech Giants and Giant Slayers: The case for Digital Sovereignty and the Digital Commons (April 2026)

Growing the Digital Commons with Open Source software offers a major opportunity for the UK in modernising critical government systems and strengthening control over public technology infrastructure. → Read more

Cultivating outside-out open innovation: How a corporate accelerator orchestrates its ecosystem (May 2026)

Based on a survey of 605 Dutch SMEs, this article shows that open innovation is not limited to large firms. Over seven years, adoption increased steadily, with eight key practices identified across technology exploration and exploitation. The study finds that SMEs are mainly driven by market-related motives but face administrative challenges. While manufacturing and service firms show similar patterns, medium-sized firms engage more in open innovation than smaller ones. →Read more

Opportunities and Tenders

Open Source Design: Governance research and documentation project

Open Source Design has some small funds to pay someone who has experience in helping OSS projects/communities build out effective governance work.

The Digital Public Goods Alliance (DPGA) seeks a consultant for a research project on business models

This work will examine how open-source software and digital public goods solutions are financed, sustained, and scaled. It will also explore the role of GovTech startups, system integrators, and public sector demand in building viable and sustainable open digital ecosystems. The deadline is 4 May 2026.

OpenMod South Africa 2026

Open Energy Transition and the University of Cape Town’s Energy Systems Research Group are hosting OpenMod South Africa 2026, the first OpenMod workshop on the African continent. Contributions are invited for lightning talks, demos, and breakout sessions. Submit your proposal by 1 May 2026 via the OpenMod forum staging area.