Redirecting Europe’s AI Industrial Policy

Cecilia Rikap is the Head of Research and an Associate Professor in Economics at the University College London’s Institute for Innovation and Public Purpose. She is a tenure researcher of the CONICET, Argentina’s national research council, and associate researcher at COSTECH lab, Université de Technologie de Compiègne. Cecilia’s research is rooted in the international political economy of science and technology and the economics of innovation. She studies the rising concentration of intangible assets leading to the emergence of intellectual monopolies among others from digital and pharma industries. Her research highlights the unequal distribution of intellectual (including data) rents and the effects of intellectual monopolization on the knowledge commons, development and rising geopolitical tensions. Her most recent work includes a focus on artificial intelligence and the cloud, Big Tech dominance of these technologies and their interplay with other multinational corporations. She is the author of the award-winning book Capitalism, Power and Innovation: Intellectual Monopoly Capitalism Uncovered and co-author of The Digital Innovation Race.

Cristina Caffarra is an expert economist who has led large antitrust advisory practices in Europe for 20 years, appearing as witness in multiple high-profile cases before the courts in several jurisdictions, and advising on landmark matters before the EC and other agencies (across Europe as well as Australia, South Africa, the Middle East, South East Asia and the US) – on behalf of both governments and clients. She is recognised as a thought leader in the regulation of the digital economy globally, advising companies but also regulators. She is a frequent public speaker and regularly presents at top events on competition, regulation and digital policy. She is also a convener gathering senior agency, policy and academic speakers for the most high-profile events in Europe on competition, regulation, and digital policy. She has written multiple contributions to the field of competition and regulation of digital markets, trade and industrial policy, lectures in competition economics as an Honorary Professor at UCL, and is also Associate Fellow of the Centre for Economic and Policy Research (CEPR) in London, Co-Founder of CEPR’s Competition Research Policy Network

Fieke Jansen is the co-founder of the Critical Infrastructure Lab and a postdoctoral Researcher at the University of Amsterdam. She also coordinates the Green Screen Climate Justice and Digital Rights Coalition.

Michelle Thorne is working towards a fossil-free internet as the Director of Strategy at the Green Web Foundation. She’s a co-initiator of the Green Screen Coalition for digital rights and climate justice and a visiting professor at Northumbria University. She served 12 years at the Mozilla Foundation, where she was Mozilla’s first Sustainable Internet Lead and earlier the director of the Mozilla Festival and co-lead of the Marie Skłodowska-Curiea Doctoral Network on Open Design of Trust Things (OpenDoTT). Michelle publishes Branch, an online magazine written by and for people who dream about a sustainable internet, which received the Ars Electronica Award for Digital Humanities in 2021. Prior to Mozilla, Michelle managed the Creative Commons international affiliate network from 2007-2010.

Sarah Chander is an advocate and organizer working within racial and migrant justice, feminist and queer movements. Sarah is Director of the Equinox Initiative of Racial Justice, a queer, racialised led organization with a vision for creating societies of care and protection. Equinox works to shift policies and resources in the European Union away from policing, punishment, borders and surveillance and toward systems protection and social provision. Equinox is a coordinator of the Protect Not Surveil Coalition, working to contest harmful digital surveillance practices in policing and migration control. Previously, she led civil society advocacy on the EU Artificial Intelligence Act, working with a coalition of over 150 civil society organizations to call for the EU AI Act to better protect people and human rights.

Seda Gürses is an Associate Professor at University of Technology Delft, in the Netherlands. She is a founding member of The Institute for Technology in the Public Interest (TITiPI), a trans-practice gathering of activists, artists, engineers and theorists initiated by Myriam Aouragh, Helen Pritchard, Femke Snelting and herself. Her research and teaching in and around the Programmable Infrastructures Project (PIP) focuses on studying how software production in current day computational infrastructures came to be and where it is going. Previously she has worked at the intersection of privacy and requirements engineering. This article is part of an ongoing collaboration between Equinox, TITiPI and PIP that aspires to weave together questions of racial, economic and environment justice into questions of tech justice. This article is part of an ongoing collaboration between Equinox, TITiPI and PIP that aspires to deepen analyses within technology policy and connect questions of political economy, racial and environmental justice into digital debates.

Margarida Silva conducts research on the political and market power of Big Tech at the Centre for Research on Multinational Corporations (SOMO). Before joining SOMO she researched and campaigned against the political influence of Big Tech and other corporate sectors over EU policy-making at Corporate Europe Observatory. Margarida holds a Master’s Degree in Political Communication from Goldsmiths, University of London, and a Bachelor’s in Communication Sciences, specialized in Journalism, from the Universidade do Porto.

Jeroen Merk is the Network Coordinator & Researcher, GoodElectronics at SOMO. He is a labor and human rights expert, with extensive knowledge of the supply chains of clothing, footwear and electronics. He obtained a PhD in international relations from the University of Sussex, Brighton (2009), followed by research positions at the London School of Economics and the University of Edinburgh. In the past, he was involved as research and policy coordinator at the international office of the Clean Clothes Campaign (CCC), a global network of labor rights advocates and anti- sweatshop activists. At CCC his involvement included campaigns for living wages and corporate accountability.

Kim van Sparrentak is an elected Member of the European Parliament for the Dutch delegation of the Greens in the European Parliament (GroenLinks-PvdA), where she works on digital and social issues within the IMCO and EMPL committees. She was a shadow-rapporteur for the AI act and rapporteur for the report on Addictive Design.

Simona is Head of Policy and Digital Policy Advisor for the Dutch delegation of the Greens in the European Parliament (GroenLinks-PvdA). She studied law at Utrecht University and the University of Cambridge and specialized in fundamental rights and tech policy during her EU Law Masters in Utrecht. As advisor to Member of the European Parliament Kim van Sparrentak she worked on the EU’s AI Act and the European Parliament report on addictive design of online services. She was also involved in the Digital Services Act and Digital Markets Act.

Burcu Kilic is a senior fellow at the Center for International Governance Innovation (CIGI) and a tech and human rights fellow at the Carr Center for Human Rights Policy at the Harvard Kennedy School. She has worked with a diverse range of organizations across civil society, philanthropy, and academia. Her research and writings cover tech policy, intellectual property, and trade, and she has provided technical advice and assistance in countries across Asia, Latin America, Europe, and Africa. As the former head of policy at Frontier Technology—a Minderoo Foundation initiative—Burcu shaped the organization’s approach to emerging technology, championing responsible, equitable, and just solutions. Before joining Minderoo, she directed the Digital Rights Program at Public Citizen, a non-profit consumer advocacy organization in Washington, DC, and also led their research on access to medicines. Her influence in tech policy, intellectual property, and trade underscores her commitment to policy entrepreneurship and rights-based advocacy. In 2015, she was recognized as one of the 300 Women Leaders in Global Health for her work on health and trade policy. From 2021 to 2022, she was a practitioner fellow with the Digital Civil Society Lab at Stanford University. Burcu completed her Ph.D. at Queen Mary University of London and holds LL.M. degrees in intellectual property law from Queen Mary University of London and information technology law from Stockholm University. She obtained her law degree from Ankara University, Turkey.

Udbhav Tiwari is the Director of Global Product Policy at Mozilla and co-leads Mozilla’s AI Policy work. He was a former Non-Resident Scholar at Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, India and was an Advisory Council Member of the Digital Equity Accelerator by the Aspen Institute. He has been quoted as an expert in various international and domestic outlets, including CNN, The Guardian, Wired UK, Financial Times, BBC, Reuters, and the Times of India. He was also a part of India Today’s ‘India Tomorrow’ list in 2020.

Francesca Bria is an innovation economist specializing in the intersections of technology, geopolitics, economy, cities, and society. She is an Honorary Professor at the Institute for Innovation and Public Purpose (IIPP) at UCL in London and a Fellow at Stiftung Mercator. Francesca serves on the High-Level Round Table for the New European Bauhaus, established by European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen to accelerate the EU Green Deal. Previously, she was President of the Italian National Innovation Fund and a member of the Executive Board of the Italian public media company RAI. From 2015 to 2019, Francesca served as Chief Digital Technology and Innovation Officer for the City of Barcelona, where she led the city’s Smart City Agenda and co-founded the United Nations Cities Coalition for Digital Rights. She initiated DECODE, the EU’s flagship project on data sovereignty, and serves as a Senior Adviser for the European Commission’s STARTS programme, which fosters innovation at the intersection of science, technology, and the arts. Francesca has lectured at universities in the UK and Italy and advised governments, as well as public and private organizations, on technology and innovation policy, focusing on socio-economic, geopolitical, and environmental impacts. She has been recognized as a Commander of the Order of Merit of the Italian Republic and was listed among the Top 50 Women in Tech by Forbes Magazine. Additionally, she was named Culture Person of the Year 2020 by Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung (FAZ) and recognized as one of the world’s top 20 most influential figures in digital government by Apolitical, as well as one of the 28 power players behind Europe’s tech revolution.

Mark Scott is a senior resident fellow at the Atlantic Council’s Digital Forensic Research Lab’s Democracy + Tech Initiative where he leads on the think tank’s digital policy work. Previously, he was POLITICO’s chief technology correspondent and has worked at the New York Times and Bloomberg Businessweek. Alongside his affiliation with the Atlantic Council, he is a research fellow at the Hertie School in Berlin.

Francesco Bonfiglio is an Italian expert in digital transformation and data economy. From 2020 to 2023, he served as CEO of the Gaia-X initiative, which supports the European Data Strategy and defines the concept of Digital Sovereignty. Under his leadership, a comprehensive strategic framework was established, fostering a large community of technology providers and users. Since 2024, Francesco Bonfiglio is the CEO of Dynamo, a new company co-founded by Aruba and Diagrammatica (Francesco’s own company) to bring about the vision of a one-stop-place for Sovereign and Innovative Cloud Solutions, grouping exclusively European Cloud and Solutions Providers. With over 30 years of experience in IT and consulting, he has held leadership positions at Engineering D.HUB, was Vice President of Confindustria Valle D’Aosta, and mentored multiple startups. Francesco also held executive roles at HP, Avanade, Unisys, and Rational Software. He believes in the power of collective intelligence, lateral thinking and teamwork as a propeller for transformation, in business as well as in life!

Zuzanna has over ten years of experience in human rights research and advocacy. Her work focuses on the intersection of science, digital technology, human rights and ethics. She is a research director at Open Future and a fellow at the Critical Infrastructure Lab. Since 2019, she has been an independent expert for the European Commission, where she participates in the ethical monitoring of EU-funded research and innovation projects. Zuzanna holds a PhD in International Law from the University of Warsaw. She passed the bar exam in April 2017, and served as the vice-president of the human rights section of the Warsaw Bar Association. She is a member of the Women’s Rights Group of the Polish Bar Council.