Stiftung Neue Verantwortung (SNV), renamed Interface in 2024, is a Berlin-based non-profit think tank founded in 2008 amid the global economic crisis. It was established on the assumption that the pressing technological and social challenges of the time required collaboration across government, civil society, academia and industry. The organization’s research combines data analysis with political analysis to inform public policy, especially at the German and European levels. SNV presents itself as a platform for evidence-based discussion on digital transformation, offering policy recommendations. One of its core programs, Strengthening the Digital Public Sphere and Platform Regulation, aims to contribute to European debates on regulating large online platforms. It focuses on risk assessment, transparency requirements and accountability mechanisms for platforms under EU and national law. SNV receives funding from German philanthropic foundations and institutional clients including the Federal Government Commissioner for Culture and the Media. In 2017 and 2018, it received two grants totaling $150,000 from the Hewlett Foundation “for support of research on the spread and impact of misinformation.” That same year, it received $200,000 from the Open Society Foundations for the project “Measuring Disinformation: Applied Research and Policy Development & Advocacy in Germany.”
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Stiftung Neue Verantwortung (SNV)
Stiftung Mercator, German Federal Commissioner for Culture and the Media...See all
Stiftung Mercator, German Federal Commissioner for Culture and the Media [Bundesbeauftragter für Kultur und Medien (BKM)] , William and Flora Hewlett Foundation, Open Society Foundations (OSF), Max Planck Institute for Human Development [für Bildungsforschung], Reset Tech See less
"Strengthening the Digital Public Sphere and Platform Regulation" program
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Commentary:
SNV arose in the wake of the 2008 crisis on the premise that cross‑sector collaboration could rescue public policy. Fifteen years on, its platform‑regulation project has yielded white papers, expert roundtables, and brisk consultations translating Brussels rule‑making into national practice. The house style is pragmatic, numbers first, resting on the faith that precise metrics will tame corporate opacity. Yet the frame is narrow. SNV treats dominant platforms as hazards to be audited, not as political actors shaping debate by design. Papers map oversight bodies, propose reporting duties, urge risk dashboards, but leave market concentration and advertising incentives largely untouched. Funding is drawn from German philanthropies and EU contracts; the think tank thus orbits the institutions it advises. The result is polished, policy‑ready analysis that steadies existing regulatory ambitions while sidestepping the deeper question of whether incremental oversight can redirect the attention economy itself.
SNV arose in the wake of the 2008 crisis on the premise that cross‑sector collaboration could rescue public policy. Fifteen years on, its platform‑regulation project has yielded white papers, expert roundtables, and brisk consultations translating Brussels rule‑making into national practice. The house style is pragmatic, numbers first, resting on the faith that precise metrics will tame corporate opacity. Yet the frame is narrow. SNV treats dominant platforms as hazards to be audited, not as political actors shaping debate by design. Papers map oversight bodies, propose reporting duties, urge risk dashboards, but leave market concentration and advertising incentives largely untouched. Funding is drawn from German philanthropies and EU contracts; the think tank thus orbits the institutions it advises. The result is polished, policy‑ready analysis that steadies existing regulatory ambitions while sidestepping the deeper question of whether incremental oversight can redirect the attention economy itself.
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