This is the proposed governance structure for steering the work that the Open Data Institute (ODI) does in its work Stewarding Solid. It is open for a 3 week consultation phase, closing at 23:59PM GMT on February 28, 2025.
If you would like to give feedback on this proposal, please open an issue on this repository. We ask that discussions take place in issues, and that no PRs are made to this document. Any required substantive changes to this document will be made after the end of the consultation period.
Last October, ODI took responsibility for the stewardship of Solid. This means that Solid sits as an initiative within the ODI structure and governance.
The ODI is a UK based not for profit organisation founded by Sir Tim Berners-Lee and Sir Nigel Shadbolt. Sir Tim (President) and Sir Nigel (Chair) are the founding members of the ODI. They are supported by a Board of Directors which consists of the following members:
| Name | Role |
|---|---|
| Sir Tim Berners-Lee | President / Co-founder |
| Sir Nigel Shadbolt | Chair / Co-founder |
| Roger Hampson | Senior Non Executive Director |
| Robert Bryan | Company Secretary and Non Executive Director |
| Anna Mazzone | Non Executive Director |
| Justine Robers | Non Executive Director |
| Louise Burke | CEO |
The board of directors are supported by the Audit and Risk Committee (ARC) which consists of the following members:
| Name | Role |
|---|---|
| Anna Mazzone | Non Executive Director / Chair ARC |
| Roger Hampson | Senior Non Executive Director |
| Robert Bryan | Company Secretary and Non Executive Director |
The Executive Leadership Team reports to the Board and consists of the following people:
| Name | Role |
|---|---|
| Louise Burke | CEO |
| Prof Elena Simperl | Director of Research & Technology |
| Stuart Coleman | Director of Consultancy and Learning |
| Emma Thwaites | Director of Global Public Policy and Corporate Affairs |
The ODI is structured through different disciplines. Solid sits in the Technology Discipline. The Technology Discipline structure delivery of projects / initiatives in the following way:
| Role | Responsibility | Name/Position |
|---|---|---|
| Project/Initiative Sponsor | Provide Oversight | Director of Technology |
| Project/Initiative Lead | Lead of the project | Jesse Wright |
| Project/Initiative Team | Delivery team | Staff / contractors |
A group of appointed individuals responsible for overseeing Solid, advising on strategic decisions and sustainability. This group will also set the vision, mission and values of the project.
The recommended members of the Advisory Committee we believe should include:
| Role | Name/Position |
|---|---|
| Lead of the Solid Project | Tim Berners-Lee |
| ODI Representative | ODI |
| W3C Group Representative | W3C Group Chair |
| Solid Community Group Representative | Solid Community Group Chair |
| Government - citizen data | TBA |
| Sustainability representative | TBA |
| Social good representation | TBA |
| Representatives from the commercial or research sector | 2 TBA positions |
| Server implementors | 2 TBA positions |
| Open source representative | 2 TBA positions |
| Civil society organisation to challenge positions | TBA |
| Inclusion advisor - responsible for advising on how to direct the project in a way that makes it inclusive to everyone / as wide a range of people as possible. | TBA |
| Major funders (at least $1m per annum funding) | 2 TBA positions (Yet to be secured) |
| Chapter leads - Country representatives | Not established as yet |
With the exception of the roles specified and linked to particular groups / chapters / funders all other roles will be recruited through an open process. Tim, ODI and the chairs (W3C Working Group and Solid Community Group) will run the selection process.
The selection process is as follows:
- The ODI nominates their representative, this will either be the ODI CEO, Director of Technology or Solid Lead
- The major funders select their representative
- The chapter lead is a fixed role, so are the representative by default
- The W3C Community Group and W3C Working Group chairs will discuss amongst themselves to nominate their own representative; noting that:
- They must represent their respective groups on the Advisory Committee, and not that of their affiliations,
- Any organizations that the chair are affiliated with are not able to submit representatives to the Advisory Committee,
- The selected Community Group and Working Group chairs must not have overlapping organisational affiliations,
- In the event that the chairs are unable to select a representative amongst themselves, they are to be elected by their respective group using a Broda count vote.
- The remaining roles are selected through an interview process. The roles are openly advertised and anyone may apply; applicants are asked to answer the following competency questions and Equal Opportunities & Diversity Monitoring Form. The candidates will be selected by a panel consisting of:
- Tim Berners-Lee
- The ODI CEO
- The ODI Project Lead
- The W3C Community Group Representative
- The W3C Working Group Representative
- Candidates will be shortlisted by this panel - shortlisted applicants will then be interviewed by all panel members who wish to participate in the interview process. The W3C Community Group representative is permitted to collect feedback on the shortlisted candidates from the Community Group, and represent these views in the panel selection. Feeback is to be collected prior to the interview. In order to comply with data protection regulation the Community Group representative is not permitted to share details of the shortlisted applicants submissions.
There may be the option to offer some financial support for a member, but the general rule is that these roles are voluntary.
Please note that where possible there should only be one representative from organisations outside of the chairs and Tim.
Our goal is to have at least 2 Global South representatives outside the Chapter Representatives and that will make a concerted effort to ensure that the AC listings are advertised to an audience in the Global South, including direct outreach.
There will be four meetings per year. Three half day meetings (3 hours) will be online and the fourth meeting will be in person, full day focusing on strategy. Initially once we establish the Advisory Committee we will have an in person meeting for a full day of orientation. In person meetings will be subject to available funding.
This group advises on key areas including the solid website, hosting structure for PODs, solidcommunity.net, GitHub.
ODI is happy to help implement this group based on advice from the Advisory Committee. We would suggest that members are in place for a 2-year term.
As ODI gets resources to start supporting the implementation of a roadmap for Solid, and to better help coordinate the community at a technical level on tasks such as codebase creation and maintenance - this advisory group would also feed back into the roadmap prioritization.
The Solid Operations Advisory Group consists of three members for 2-year terms. Specifically,
- There is a self-nomination process. Candidates are asked to submit a statement justifying their suitability to the role - including experiences and background that means they will ensure accessibility of infrastructure to a diverse range of developers and end users - towards the global vision of Solid. This will be made via a PR to a specified document in this repository. Nominees will have 10 days from the date of announcement to self-nominate. To self-nominate, candidates must have meaningfully contributed to one of the following within the last 12 months, or be endorsed by two community members who have meaningfully contributed to one of the following within the last 12 months:
- solidproject.org,
- solidcommunity.net, and
- any repositories under the solid and solid-contrib GitHub organizations.
- There will be a 10 day period in which to vote for nominees - anyone may vote. Voters are required to disclose their institutional affiliation, and there must be at most one vote per institution. Voting will take place using a Broda count. If there are three or fewer self-nominees, they will become the Operations Advisory Group without an election.
The ODI will take advice from the Advisory Committee on whether this group needs to be re-structured at any point in time, inclusive of number of members, selection process and member term.
- Adoption and engagement, policy, advocacy and use cases / deployments - the need for these additional groups will be discussed with the Advisory Committee.
- Escalation and conflict resolution
- Advisory Committee - is a group that recommends particular courses of action with a focus on strategic direction. In the event of a conflict the matter would be referred to the ODI Board. It should be noted that throughout the time that ODI has stewarded initiatives there has never been an escalation that required intervention from the ODI Board.
- Solid Operations Advisory Group - ODI Director / Head of Technology will make a decision in the event of a dispute.
There is likely to be funding available for Solid within different countries around the world. We discussed this at the ODI Board and agreed that we should keep the cost of setting up in some countries to a minimum as we want to concentrate the funding on building Solid. The recommendation therefore is that ODI could open branch offices in other countries. In countries where a branch structure is not legally sound or cost-effective, other structures will be considered on a case-by-case basis.
A branch is not a separate legal entity but merely an extension of the ODI enabling an office to exist within a territory. This model would provide Solid with the benefits of the ODI brand, governance, and compliance processes with support from the existing team / back office. It is a low cost option enabling us to work in different countries especially where local funding is available to support Solid.
The establishment of overseas branches should only be done in the event that we identify real opportunities to unlock funding support to take Solid forward. In the absence of such funding we would encourage those in other countries to feedback their research / use cases / deployments to the W3C Community Group. ODI would provide a Community Manager to support this knowledge sharing.