NGI Fediversity Open Call
Cost-recovery donation of EUR 5,000–50,000 per proposal, with a cumulative EUR 60,000 hard limit per individual or organisation over the Fediversity programme lifetime. The programme reserves EUR 450,000, or 15% of its budget, for competitively selected third-party projects. · NLnet Foundation / European Commission
NGI Fediversity Open Call is a grant programme from NLnet Foundation / European Commission for Individuals and organisations worldwide building free and open federated internet technology Current lifecycle: closed. Real economics: Cost-recovery donation of EUR 5,000–50,000 per proposal, with a cumulative EUR 60,000 hard limit per individual or organisation over the Fediversity programme lifetime. The programme reserves EUR 450,000, or 15% of its budget, for competitively selected third-party projects..
Tier 3governmentglobalopen-sourceinternet
ApplyOfficial siteOpen in the live directory
Key facts
| Funder | NLnet Foundation / European Commission |
| Amount | Cost-recovery donation of EUR 5,000–50,000 per proposal, with a cumulative EUR 60,000 hard limit per individual or organisation over the Fediversity programme lifetime. The programme reserves EUR 450,000, or 15% of its budget, for competitively selected third-party projects. |
| Decision time | NLnet says applicants should expect three to five months from the call deadline through written multi-stage review and clarification. The conservative comparable duration is 150 days. |
| Eligibility | Any individual or formal or informal organisation worldwide proposing English-language R&D that materially advances Fediversity's open, reproducible and portable hosting stack. Work needs a clear European dimension, technical and strategic merit, cost effectiveness, and fully open outputs; consortium conflicts are excluded and EU/Horizon-associated applicants receive tie-break priority. |
| Restrictions | No money is paid up front: the MoU divides work and funding into milestones, and recipients claim after a milestone is delivered. The default duration is 12 months, with exceptions by agreement. Deliverables must be public under recognised open licences, software should be WCAG-compliant where applicable, audit findings must be addressed before repeat support, and material plan changes need discussion with NLnet. Eligible cost-effective work includes research; open software or hardware design and development; validation; engineering and quality improvement; formal proofs, security audits, testing and CI; documentation; standards work; accessibility and usability; packaging; directly relevant technical events; project management; and essential infrastructure. General event sponsorship, unrelated operations and ordinary hosted-service operating costs are excluded; facilities and administrative costs are exceptional and capped at 25% when allowed. |
| Status | closed |
Always confirm on the official page before applying — dates and terms change.
Application process
- Wait for a confirmed Fediversity call and submit the short English proposal by its deadline
- Pass topic, R&D, European-dimension and conflict-of-interest eligibility screening
- Receive first-stage scoring weighted 30% technical feasibility, 40% relevance and impact, and 30% value for money
- Meet the weighted 5-of-7 threshold to enter the second stage
- Answer written reviewer questions and revise or clarify the plan and budget
- Enter the ranked list subject to remaining budget
- Pass validation by at least two members of the independent review committee
- Complete identity and compliance checks and negotiate the milestone-based memorandum of understanding
- Publish open deliverables and claim payments after completed milestones
- Use optional NGI Zero Review audits and expert services and complete the project normally within 12 months
Background
NLnet Foundation / European Commission operates NGI Fediversity Open Call. This pass separates direct cash, repayable finance, credits, incentives and umbrella programs so later ranking does not compare unlike instruments. Fediversity reserves EUR 450,000 for third-party grants across its December 2023–November 2027 programme The official combined August/October 2025 pilot selection included two Fediversity projects: Runtime NixOS Closure Verification and NixEdgeOpt Selected work targets whole-system NixOS verified boot and adaptive placement and live migration of NixOS services
How the application really works
Wait for a confirmed Fediversity call and submit the short English proposal by its deadline → Pass topic, R&D, European-dimension and conflict-of-interest eligibility screening → Receive first-stage scoring weighted 30% technical feasibility, 40% relevance and impact, and 30% value for money → Meet the weighted 5-of-7 threshold to enter the second stage → Answer written reviewer questions and revise or clarify the plan and budget → Enter the ranked list subject to remaining budget → Pass validation by at least two members of the independent review committee → Complete identity and compliance checks and negotiate the milestone-based memorandum of understanding → Publish open deliverables and claim payments after completed milestones → Use optional NGI Zero Review audits and expert services and complete the project normally within 12 months
Tips
- Show direct fit with reproducible hosting stacks.
- Show direct fit with Nix and NixOS.
- Show direct fit with service portability.
- Show direct fit with decentralised and federated services.
- Show direct fit with cloud and hosting infrastructure.
- Show direct fit with software supply chains.
- Show direct fit with security and privacy.
- Show direct fit with open-source software.
- Show direct fit with open hardware.
- Show direct fit with open standards.
- Show direct fit with inclusive user experience.
Watch out for
- Current lifecycle is closed.
- No money is paid up front: the MoU divides work and funding into milestones, and recipients claim after a milestone is delivered. The default duration is 12 months, with exceptions by agreement. Deliverables must be public under recognised open licences, software should be WCAG-compliant where applicable, audit findings must be addressed before repeat support, and material plan changes need discussion with NLnet.
- Eligible cost-effective work includes research; open software or hardware design and development; validation; engineering and quality improvement; formal proofs, security audits, testing and CI; documentation; standards work; accessibility and usability; packaging; directly relevant technical events; project management; and essential infrastructure. General event sponsorship, unrelated operations and ordinary hosted-service operating costs are excluded; facilities and administrative costs are exceptional and capped at 25% when allowed.
Track record
- Fediversity reserves EUR 450,000 for third-party grants across its December 2023–November 2027 programme
- The official combined August/October 2025 pilot selection included two Fediversity projects: Runtime NixOS Closure Verification and NixEdgeOpt
- Selected work targets whole-system NixOS verified boot and adaptive placement and live migration of NixOS services
Fediversity is competitive and budget-ranked but publishes no program-wide application denominator or acceptance rate. An official combined pilot announcement identified two Fediversity selections from the August and October 2025 rounds without reporting how many Fediversity proposals were reviewed.
Frequently asked questions
- Is this actionable now?
- closed. The twelfth Fediversity call opened 1 June and closed 1 August 2026 at 12:00 CEST. NLnet announced that its general open calls resume 3 September with a first new deadline on 3 November, but it did not confirm that Fediversity itself will reopen then; the programme runs through November 2027 subject to remaining budget.
- What is the real economic value?
- Cost-recovery donation of EUR 5,000–50,000 per proposal, with a cumulative EUR 60,000 hard limit per individual or organisation over the Fediversity programme lifetime. The programme reserves EUR 450,000, or 15% of its budget, for competitively selected third-party projects.
- Who is eligible?
- Any individual or formal or informal organisation worldwide proposing English-language R&D that materially advances Fediversity's open, reproducible and portable hosting stack. Work needs a clear European dimension, technical and strategic merit, cost effectiveness, and fully open outputs; consortium conflicts are excluded and EU/Horizon-associated applicants receive tie-break priority.
- How does selection work?
- Wait for a confirmed Fediversity call and submit the short English proposal by its deadline; Pass topic, R&D, European-dimension and conflict-of-interest eligibility screening; Receive first-stage scoring weighted 30% technical feasibility, 40% relevance and impact, and 30% value for money; Meet the weighted 5-of-7 threshold to enter the second stage; Answer written reviewer questions and revise or clarify the plan and budget; Enter the ranked list subject to remaining budget; Pass validation by at least two members of the independent review committee; Complete identity and compliance checks and negotiate the milestone-based memorandum of understanding; Publish open deliverables and claim payments after completed milestones; Use optional NGI Zero Review audits and expert services and complete the project normally within 12 months. NLnet says applicants should expect three to five months from the call deadline through written multi-stage review and clarification. The conservative comparable duration is 150 days.
- What burden and restrictions apply?
- No money is paid up front: the MoU divides work and funding into milestones, and recipients claim after a milestone is delivered. The default duration is 12 months, with exceptions by agreement. Deliverables must be public under recognised open licences, software should be WCAG-compliant where applicable, audit findings must be addressed before repeat support, and material plan changes need discussion with NLnet. Eligible cost-effective work includes research; open software or hardware design and development; validation; engineering and quality improvement; formal proofs, security audits, testing and CI; documentation; standards work; accessibility and usability; packaging; directly relevant technical events; project management; and essential infrastructure. General event sponsorship, unrelated operations and ordinary hosted-service operating costs are excluded; facilities and administrative costs are exceptional and capped at 25% when allowed.
- What evidence exists?
- Fediversity reserves EUR 450,000 for third-party grants across its December 2023–November 2027 programme The official combined August/October 2025 pilot selection included two Fediversity projects: Runtime NixOS Closure Verification and NixEdgeOpt Selected work targets whole-system NixOS verified boot and adaptive placement and live migration of NixOS services Fediversity is competitive and budget-ranked but publishes no program-wide application denominator or acceptance rate. An official combined pilot announcement identified two Fediversity selections from the August and October 2025 rounds without reporting how many Fediversity proposals were reviewed.
Related grants
Sources
- nlnet.nl/fediversity — Official last-call dates, amount range, programme budget, open-output rule and November 2027 horizon (checked 2026-08-10)
- nlnet.nl/news/2026/20260803-phaseshift.html — Official current pause, September resumption and general November 3 deadline schedule; not a fund-specific reopening promise (checked 2026-08-10)
- nlnet.nl/fediversity/guideforapplicants — Official three-stage scoring, EUR 50,000 proposal and EUR 60,000 lifetime caps, MoU, follow-on and conflict rules (checked 2026-08-10)
- nlnet.nl/fediversity/eligibility — Official activity, applicant and geographic eligibility (checked 2026-08-10)
- nlnet.nl/fediversity/faq — Official legal-entity, age, decision-time, milestone, reporting, use, support-service and commercialization rules (checked 2026-08-10)
- nlnet.nl/news/2025/20251226-project-selection-pilots.html — Official selected Fediversity project examples from the August and October 2025 rounds (checked 2026-08-10)