On the need to establish public infrastructure to preserve digital sovereignty

Oort, Frans

doi:10.5281/zenodo.8209174

Published August 2, 2023 | Version July 2023

Report Open

On the need to establish public infrastructure to preserve digital sovereignty

Oort, Frans¹

1. University of Amsterdam

Digital sovereignty - the ability to control your own digital destiny: the data, hardware and software you rely on and create - is paramount for universities and other academic institutions as a prerequisite for equitable and open research and teaching.

LERU's Public Infrastructure Taskforce (PIT) has addressed the issue of digital sovereignty and explored what universities can do to create a public infrastructure for open access publication of all types of scholarly output - at all stages of the research process - while preserving digital sovereignty, academic quality and integrity. The PIT envisages an open and public infrastructure landscape with a number of specific characteristics.

This note summarises the main findings of a survey of LERU members on the usefulness and feasibility of public infrastructure.

Notes

Members of LERU's Public Infrastructure Taskforce (in alphabetical order): Etienne Augé (Paris-Saclay), Paul Ayris (co-chair, UCL), Anne-Catherine Fritzinger (Sorbonne), Paola Galimberti (Milan), John Renner Hansen (Copenhagen), Kristoffer Holmqvist (Lund), Ignasi Labastida (Barcelona), Andrea Malits (Zürich ), Christian Oesterheld (Zurich), Frans Oort (co-chair, Amsterdam), Lars Pastewka (Freiburg), Jeroen Sondervan (Utrecht), Kimmo Tuominen (Helsinki), Demmy Verbeke (Leuven), Immo Warntjes (Dublin), Saskia Woutersen (Leiden). The work was supported by Pascal Braak (Amsterdam), Robert van der Vooren (Amsterdam), and Maurits van der Graaf (commissioned consultant, Pleiade). The PIT charter is published at https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.7028254 .

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