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Title Talking Points! Digital commons can help governments secure digital sovereignty, save money and build trust. Reflections and outputs from three Digital Commons Policy Council workshops held in Paris, Liverpool and Vitoria-Gasteiz

Released 23 Feb. 2026

Format 190mm x 272 mm, 70 pages.

DCPC26 Talking Points! Instructions

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DCPC26 Talking Points! Background

In her keynote address to a deliberative democracy conference held in 2025 in Canberra, Brazilian scholar Thamy Pogrebinschi argued that at a time of autocratic resurgence, democratic resilience must look beyond institutional guardrails towards ‘civil society’s creativity, citizens’ problem-solving capacities, collaborative forms of governance, and – beyond deliberation – the kinds of collective intelligence that emerge when people confront challenges directly’.

In a way, this precisely describes how people collaboratively create digital commons, shared information and knowledge resources such as data, software and cultural content.

In order to facilitate connections between state entities and digital commons projects, the Digital Commons Policy Council held in 2024 and 2025 two collaborative workshops in Paris and Liverpool. Participants came from all five continents and included members of digital commons communities, public organisations, civil society organisations, and academia.

The first two workshops followed an ‘unconference’ format whereby work directions emerged from the attendees’ deliberations. Participants first discussed issues currently impacting digital commons development, such as predation from Big Tech firms, support from the EU, and the need to bridge the cultural divide between government agencies and digital commons communities and projects.

Next, the general assemblies of participants identified several resources that would enhance the development and protection of digital commons, as well as their recognition and acceptance by government agencies. Participants then self-selected into breakout groups to co-design these resources via open documents, with groups reporting at intervals to the general assemblies for feedback. Following the workshops, group members continued working to finalise the resources (not all the resources were completed).

The completed resources, as well as reflections from the Paris and Liverpool events (and from a third shorter workshop help in Vitoria-Gasteiz during the Open Government Partnership summit) have now been collected into a luxurious 70-page report.

DCPC26 Talking Points! Contents

1. AFTER THE WORKSHOPS

The commons conspiracy (February 2026) Broca, Cai, Chandrasekhar, Daly, Folz, Nanni, O’Neil, Thwaites

2. WORKSHOP OUTPUTS

Blog post: Fostering public support for digital commons: Key takeaways from the DCPC-CIS 2024 Policy Lab, Open Future (June 2024) Krewer, O’Neil

Guide: 23 Recommendations to government, Best Practices Guide for Government – Digital Commons Relations (September 2024) O’Neil, Daly, Corneille, Leeming, Nanni (with additional contributions from Cai, Chandrasekhar, Gruson-Daniel, Guerry)

Blog post: A call for action and a roadmap for the new UK government to support the digital commons, Foundation for Science and Technology (October 2024) Daly, Leeming, Nanni, O’Neil

Stakeholder engagement tools: Enhancing national digital resilience with digital commons (October 2025) O’Neil, Folz, Nanni (with additional contributions from Chandrasekhar, Daly, Donnelly, Hanssen, Guerry)

Theoretical mapping: Freedom without justice in the digital commons: towards a new taxonomy (February 2026) Krewer, Chandrasekhar, Guillier, Singh (with additional contributions from Aith, Kalemera, Narayan, Tait and Vidal)

Aspirational principles: Principles for governments to support Inclusive Global Digital Commons (February 2026) Daly, de Neiva Borba, de Freitas Campos, Massey (with additional contributions from Chandrasekhar, O’Neil)

3. BEFORE THE WORKSHOPS

Increasing the recognition and sustainability of digital commons (May 2024) Braybrooke, Broca, Daly, O’Neil, Rikap, Thwaites, Zacchiroli

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