Our grantees have helped put fundamental rights and democratic freedoms at the heart of policymaking on AI. They’ve brought marginalised communities such as migrants, autistic people and sex workers into the debate. And they’re exploring how AI is intersecting in criminal justice, climate, health and more.
As well as offering financial support, we help organisations build networks, gain skills and work collaboratively to drive change.
Issued: Apr 2025|1 year 9 monthsLive
Weaving Liberation
€165.000 Build
Netherlands
This grant supported Weaving Liberation to organise a five-day Digital Liberation Retreat for 70 people for civil society, researchers and rechnologists. The space enabled changemakers from all over Europe to exchange visions of AI, and stimulate innovative and bold thinking around public interest technologies. Weaving Liberations facilitated discussions about how to make those ideas reality, from working with fiscal sponsors to fundraising, legal compliance and leadership models.
Despite introducing legally binding carbon budgets in 2021, the Irish Government has pursued an economic model heavily reliant on data centre expansion, largely driven by the rise of AI. Data centres have emerged as the largest driver of electricity demand in Ireland, consuming a share of all energy three times higher than in other EU countries.
With this grant, Friends of the Earth Ireland partnered with others to establish a system of accountability for AI-powered data centre growth in Ireland – a moratorium.
With this project, Reversing.Works aimed to lower the barrier of entry so that activists (unions, councils, or workers themselves) can get support and help in getting their boss – the platform – to respect workers’ rights, despite AI algorithms managing them.
With this grant, Homo Digitalis set up G.A.I.N – Greek AI Network – uniting civil society groups to share expertise, knowledge and know-how, and build collective strategies to promote social justice alongside the AI Act implementation.
The grant will allow CECU to enhance its role in AI Act implementation in Spain, promoting transparency and public involvement to advocate for fundamental rights.
To ensure consumer needs are considered in the AI Act, ANEC set up an AI Taskforce for consumer professionals to inform its standards. Comprising nine members across eight countries (Austria, Germany, Cyprus, Bulgaria, Netherlands, Greece, Spain and Italy), the taskforce is building capacity among consumer professionals to engage in AI standardisation at national level.
Hermes Center (Associazione Hermes) and The Good Lobby Italy
€30.000 Ecosystem grants
Italy
With the support of this grant, Hermes Center and the Good Lobby Italy developed compelling narratives and public campaigns around risks of AI and the impacts of the European AI Act in Italy. In collaboration with artists, they also hosted an exhibition in Bologna engaging new people in the debate and politics of AI and surveillance technologies.
With this grant, Open Future is a European developed protocols for copyright compliance policies that establish meaningful, practical protections for information producers, creative workers, and other rightsholders from AI using content without permission. In the context of the ongoing unauthorised appropriation of creative labour, such protections are an important element of ensuring economic justice and fairness.
Building on the coordination CDT Europe steered during the AI Act negotiations, with this grant they brought together key civil society organisations and decision-makers to discuss and collaborate on key AI Act milestones to ensure collective work towards its successful implementation.
