As traditional funding retreats, new tech philanthropists must step up.
While Europe is scaling up its defense efforts — including through innovation and venture capital investment — its vulnerability to digital information threats remains a critical blind spot. The growing influence of hostile actors, whether state-sponsored, local proxies or individuals, weaponizing the architectures and algorithms of major digital and AI platforms, poses an escalating risk to public health and safety, social cohesion, democratic processes, national security, and foreign policy.
Yet, we believe Europe has the potential to become a world-class leader in Information Integrity — a place where students, citizens, employees, are globally recognized for their resistance to cognitive and technological compromise, operating within trusted and sovereign digital infrastructure.
However, in the very short term, Europe risks losing the organizations capable of building that future.
Today, fundamental innovation and expertise in the Information Integrity field are largely driven by Europe’s civil society — including research institutions, non-profits, and academia. These ecosystems seed future entrepreneurship. Their work spans a wide range of expertise. It includes foreign interference detection, spread pattern analysis, open-source intelligence (OSINT), digital forensics, and fact-checking methodologies. It also covers pre-bunking strategies, media literacy, journalistic standards, platform accountability, and the ethical use of AI in information environments.
This ecosystem is now under threat due to a severe funding gap: traditional US public and philanthropic support can no longer be taken for granted, while European and national public funding for European investments are insufficient and lacks agility.
Immediate funding (small, fast grants, ensuring operational continuity) is needed to sustain core monitoring and ambitious, innovative counter-disinformation activities across Europe. Particular attention may be needed in regions that have historically benefited from US philanthropic support, such as Eastern Europe
Without this emergency intervention, we risk a systemic failure, just as demand for these capabilities is exploding.
Going forward, in the coming years, we need to transition from a fragmented, non-harmonized, and under-monetized landscape of fundamental innovation in the fight against disinformation and foreign interference online, to a well-structured field of expertise. To build a powerful industry, we must invest heavily in three foundational steps:
Sync and frame. Information Integrity must become a fully coordinated industry. This starts with innovative tools to measure risk and impact. We need to develop standardised terminologies and frameworks. We must invest in infrastructure that supports European coordination. Cross-border knowledge-sharing is critical — about disinformation narratives, key actors, tools, and countermeasures. Interoperability must be a priority. We also need stronger operational links between academics, non-profits, European tech firms, and democratic institutions.
Engine. Data ownership and traceability must be enhanced — especially with regard to AI training. We need to fund new models for value creation and monetization of trusted content and data. As the Information Integrity ecosystem is currently combatting machine-amplified industrial volumes of disinformation, we should support the development of expertises such as algorithmic auditing, OSINT and finance a strong innovative tech stack, including predictive analytics and pre-bunking technologies, data collection infrastructure, sovereign information infrastructures, leveraging new AI possibilities.
Form talents. Public awareness must grow. We must fund academic programs and career pivot paths to train talent across Europe and retain the top-tier tech professionals we already produce.
This is why we call for a new wave of philanthropy — born from the European tech ecosystem, fluent in code, in purpose, and in the underlying cultures and ideologies that shape the digital world. It should be collective rather than single-source — encouraging diversity, shared responsibility, and resilience. It should be independent, agile, and fast-moving. Tech-savvy philanthropists could also offer more than capital: they can act as strategic allies, helping mission-driven organizations scale and strengthen their technological capabilities.
With sufficient funding, Europe will lead in safeguarding Information Integrity. Within a few years, the vibrant non-profit ecosystem will be laying the groundwork for future waves of startup creation and wider industrial advances. If we unite and act swiftly, we can identify and develop the next generation of leaders, poised to defend the core values of our society against the digital challenges of tomorrow.
Alexandre Alaphilippe, Marie Bohner, Marc Faddoul, Brandi Geurkink, Clara Jiménez Cruz, Maia Klaassen, Chine Labbé, Laura Roguet