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Join the OFE Team as a Policy Intern
Deadline for application: 20 March 2026 Interviews will start immediately and continue until the vacancy has been filled Start date: as soon as possible, exact date to be agreed Contract:…
Homepage Who We Are
Who We Are
OpenForum Europe (OFE) is a not-for-profit, independent think tank based in Brussels, dedicated to championing the transformative power of open technologies in society. We advocate for a Europe where real user choice, fair competition, and open innovation drive digital sovereignty, economic competitiveness, resilience and growth.
Who We Are
Guided by our core principles—user centricity, competition, flexibility, sustainability and community—we work to lower barriers, build credible alternatives and foster collaboration between open technology communities, public authorities and industry. Our mission is to ensure that Europe’s digital future remains open, inclusive and innovative, enabling individuals, businesses and governments to realise the full potential of open technologies.
Founded in 2002 to promote the use of open source software across business, government and society, OFE has evolved into a policy and research organisation with a focus on openness as a strategic enabler. Our Brussels-based team works with partners, supporters and specialist advisors across Europe and globally. Our main areas of work include open source, open standards, digital sovereignty, cybersecurity, digital government, public procurement, intellectual property, cloud computing and internet policy.
OFE also coordinates the OpenForum Academy, an independent network of global fellows contributing research and thought leadership on openness in digital markets. We engage closely with the European institutions, national governments and civil society to ensure that openness remains at the centre of Europe’s digital transformation.
What We Do
OpenForum Europe is an independent think tank advancing openness in digital policy. Independence for us means operating without members, representing no single interest, and being guided by evidence and our principles. We are supported by a diverse network of partners from industry, civil society and the open technology community, but our work and positions remain our own.
For a quarter century, we have worked at the intersection of open technologies and European policymaking. We research, convene and promote. Through studies, events and publications we bring together policymakers, businesses and open technology communities to build institutions, strengthen voices and connect diverse stakeholders across Europe and beyond.
We act as the middleware between the horizontally organised open technology ecosystems and the more hierarchical structures of political decision-making—translating between them to make openness credible, practical and effective as policy.
Our work is grounded in Open Technology Impact Research, examining how openness shapes our societies’ economic growth, innovation, sovereignty and sustainability. Open technologies are not an end in themselves but understood by us as a means to achieve Europe’s strategic goals.
“The strategic challenges of our time cannot be tackled by any company or country alone. Open innovation is crucial for achieving the goals of the Green and Digital Transitions.”
Astor Nummelin Carlberg
Executive Director
OFE Year in Review
Explore our OFE Year in Review reports, showcasing our annual achievements and key milestones. This curated collection offers insights into our work, impact, and progress throughout each year.
The OFE Openness Principles
Openness is not a political statement, development method, or business model. Openness is a means to an end. It is essential that we do not lose sight of objectives including:
User Centricity
Providing choice to consumers, including options (for example in terms of cost or accessibility) that eliminate digital exclusion.
Competition
Providing a level playing field between producers, forcing them to compete on functionality and quality and ensuring constant innovation.
Flexibility
Enabling the construction of complex combinations of products and/or services from different providers where part of the combination can be upgraded or replaced when better products or services become available in the future.
Sustainability
Enabling the construction of products, services and combinations thereof that are sustainable in terms of access to information, cost and impact on the environment.
Community
To meet these objectives, some coordination is needed: between providers and consumers to ensure user centricity or between providers to ensure flexibility. For this reason, openness often implies some form of community in which everyone can participate, where no single entity dominates the debate and where decisions are taken via a transparent process.
Our team
Faces Behind Our Vision
Meet the people who drive our mission forward.
Our work
Latest News
News
Join the OFE Team as a Research Intern
Deadline for application: 20 March 2026Interviews will start immediately and continue until the vacancy has been filledStart date: As soon as possible, exact date to be agreedContract: Internship based…
News
The EU Open Source Policy Summit 2026: Key learnings and takeaways
The EU Open Source Policy Summit 2026, held on 30 January in Brussels under the theme ‘Digital Sovereignty Runs on Open Source’, brought together…
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Connecting Europe’s Open Source Community: EU Open Source Week 2026
Every year, at the end of January, the global open source and open technology community descends on Brussels, on the occasion of the FOSDEM conference. Since…