On 30 January 2025, the European Open Source Academy (EOSA) will host its inaugural Awards ceremony, celebrating European excellence in open source. With this new EU-funded initiative Europe is positioning itself to become a leader in open source software and hardware.
The European Open Source Academy and Awards initiative, supported by a consortium of seven European partner organisations, demonstrates the EU’s recognition of the value of open source software and hardware for an innovative technological market and a competitive economy. The EOAS is a direct follow-up to the study on “The Impact of Open Source on the EU Economy” (2021), commissioned by DG-CONNECT and conducted by Franhaufer and OpenForum Europe. This study shed light on the economic value of open source software and hardware for Europe, with an impact ranging between €65 and €95 billion across Member States, and a cost-benefit ratio for open source software investment of 1:4-1:10. The study also outlined policy recommendations to fully realise and amplify the impact of open source software and hardware in Europe, which emphasised the need for a strategic approach to open source focused on knowledge creation, diffusion, and networking.
By funding the EOSA, the European Commission acted on these findings and took a strategic approach to the need for recognition and support of open source. This initiative aims to bring open source software and hardware to the centre stage, recognising those individuals and projects who by their technical, educational, business, and policy contributions have had a significant impact on driving a thriving open source ecosystem in Europe.
The Academy: Excellence, Learning, and Sustainability
“The project aims to create institutions and awards that will amplify public recognition and awareness of open source software and hardware in Europe for many years to come. The work will further help to foster European interest and skills development across society in contributing to and adopting open source technologies, and by extension increasing the competitiveness and open strategic autonomy of Europe.” Johan Linaker, Senior Researcher at RISE, Project Coordinator
The European Open Source Academy aims to become a longstanding institution, driving the use and development of open source software and hardware in Europe, from maintenance and innovation to business models and policy frameworks. With a focus on excellence, the European Open Source Academy will host the annual European Open Source Awards, creating a prestigious ceremony that will bring together representatives from the open source, policy, and industry sectors.
The EOSA also integrates training and learning components and will become a hub for skills development and knowledge sharing, providing an avenue to foster interest and knowledge in the use of open source across Europe. With this focus on training, the initiative aims to create a new generation of open source contributors and to bridge the gap between open source and Europe’s industrial and public sectors.
A final core component of the initiative is a study to investigate what are the critical areas to recognise to raise Europe’s awareness of open source’s technological and economic value. This will result in a visualisation tool for open source projects in Europe and inform an outreach strategy towards policymakers and business leaders, highlighting the importance of sustainable funding open source maintenance and innovation.
The Awards: A lighthouse for open source in Europe
The Academy will convene on an annual basis the European Open Source Awards. With the critical role of open source in today’s digital economy all too often remaining in the shadow, the Awards will be the occasion to bring the open source community to the spotlight and in particular to raise policymakers’ awareness of open source software and hardware.
To mark the launch of the European Open Source Awards, the inaugural ceremony will feature a first set of inaugural awards recognising impactful contributions that have helped raise the public profile of open source in Europe. These will include the European Open Source Achievement Award, the Open Source Business & Impact Award, the Open Source Skills & Education Award, and the Open Source Advocacy & Awareness Award.
The inaugural ceremony will take place in the heart of the EU, in Brussels, on the evening of 30 January 2025 and will welcome open source experts alongside Europe’s policy and business leaders.