The Case for OSPOs in Government & Universities

The establishment of Open Source Program Offices (OSPOs) to achieve open source goals is gaining momentum in the public sector, in academia and beyond. We see these developments on a city, regional, national and supranational level. This matters because the OSPO construct was a key enabler in unlocking vast amounts of value for the ICT industry. Now the question is how OSPOs in government, academia and NGOs can help deliver value for citizens the world over at scale.

In industry, OSPOs are well established and typically provide legal and support services for an organisation’s open source efforts. Generally speaking, OSPOs are built to achieve and accelerate policy goals which rely on open source and open tools. This includes systemic policy goals including privacy, security, trust, diversity, participation, and access to technology.

At this event, the panelists will outline the state of thinking around institutionalising open source work in the academic and public sectors (and beyond) and discuss how different OSPO configurations can help institutions to: 

• respond to demands for greater transparency and trust in technology and public institutions
• accelerate digital transformation
• participate, lead, and apply locally the enormous rivers of global innovation generated by OSS
• support the upskilling of EU’s developer community to participate in and lead in global OSS efforts
• enhance the EU’s strategic autonomy in the digital field