Stefanie Lumnitz
Stefanie Lumnitz works at the intersection of environmental data, artificial intelligence, and European policy. She is an Environmental Observations Policy Officer at the European Commission Directorate-General for Research and Innovation, currently seconded from the European Space Agency. Her work focuses on strengthening Europe’s Earth intelligence ecosystem by connecting environmental observations, modelling, AI, and open geospatial technologies. Through initiatives such as the EC–ESA Earth System Science Initiative, she brings together scientific communities across Europe to close key knowledge gaps in the Earth system while fostering open, collaborative infrastructures for environmental data and analytics. She is particularly interested in how open geospatial ecosystems can strengthen Europe’s technological sovereignty, support sustainable digital infrastructures, and stimulate a stronger innovation and start-up culture around environmental data and open-source technologies.
Session
Europe is entering a new geopolitical and economic phase. Resilience, competitiveness, and digital sovereignty are moving to the centre of public debate. In that context, open source is no longer seen only as a software development model or a community ethos. It is becoming part of how Europe thinks about digital capacity and sovereignty.
For the geospatial community, this shift matters deeply. Open-source geospatial software forms part of the operational backbone through which data is processed, interpreted, and turned into public value. Despite Europe’s strong communities, mature projects, and world-class technical leadership, cybersecurity, scaling and long-term sustainability remains fragile. This is now being recognised more explicitly at European level, including through the European Open Digital Ecosystem Strategy and the Horizon 2026 Work Programme. The former is a component of the upcoming European Commission’s Technological Sovereignty package, whose adoption is expected for Q2 2026; the latter offers an opportunity for the community to address sustainability considerations through economic leadership.
This talk reflects on that changing landscape through the lens of research, innovation, and Europe’s evolving strategic context. It explores how emerging debates on digital sovereignty, AI, and open digital ecosystems are beginning to reshape the wider landscape for FOSS4G in Europe. Together, we will discuss what digital sovereignty may mean in practice for geospatial open source, what kinds of support structures are needed to move from individual project success to durable ecosystem capacity, and how developers, communities, institutions, and companies can help define models of sustainability that preserve openness while strengthening European capacity.
The aim is to look beyond policy slogans and consider the deeper shift now underway. If geospatial open source is becoming part of Europe’s strategic future, would the community be ready to respond, and how? What are the existing gaps to fill, challenges to address, and opportunities to be aware of? And what kind of European digital future does it want to help build?
- Call for Evidence on the European Open Digital Ecosystem Strategy: https://ec.europa.eu/info/law/better-regulation/have-your-say/initiatives/16213-European-Open-Digital-Ecosystems_en
A services and business incubator for geospatial open-source developments: https://ec.europa.eu/info/funding-tenders/opportunities/portal/screen/opportunities/topic-details/HORIZON-CL6-2026-03-GOVERNANCE-06?keywords=incubator&isExactMatch=true&status=31094501,31094502,31094503&programmePeriod=2021%20-%202027&frameworkProgramme=43108390&order=DESC&pageNumber=1&pageSize=50&sortBy=relevance
Di Marco D., Thabit S., Kotsev A., Christensen A., Minghini M. et al., Open but Not Powerless:
Towards a Common Understanding of EU Digital Sovereignty, European Commission Ispra, 2025, JRC144908: https://publications.jrc.ec.europa.eu/repository/handle/JRC144908