About us

interface is an independent expert organisation specialising in information technology and public policy. Our goal is to ensure that political decision-makers have the expertise and ideas necessary to create policies and make decisions that put the public interest first.

Tech analysis and policy ideas for Europe

We provide analysis and ideas to decision-makers and the public across Europe on issues such as artificial intelligence (AI), cybersecurity, platform oversight, global chip dynamics and government surveillance. To produce analysis and advice that matters to policy-makers, our experts combine a deep understanding of technology with practical experience of how government works.

We are uncompromisingly independent. We are non-partisan, and we do not accept financial support from the companies directly affected by the policies we address. We are fully transparent about where our funding comes from and how we spend it.

Originally known as Stiftung Neue Verantwortung (SNV), our organisation has over a decade of experience engaging in policy making in and beyond Germany. Our long-term goal is to become a leading think tank for tech issues in and for Europe.

Shaping today’s profound technological transformation is a serious challenge for democratic societies and governments. We rightly expect policy-makers to prioritise the public interest; however, there are major difficulties in this regard. The rapid pace of technological change and complex, often opaque, business models mean that keeping abreast of developments requires highly specialised expertise. Technologists are able to earn ten times more in the private sector than in the public one, which leaves the public sector struggling to close the knowledge and capacity gap. This gap is too often filled by companies or industry groups, which represents a serious problem for democratic societies.

We are convinced that expertise that is not influenced by partisan or commercial interests is a critical resource for successful political decision-making in today’s democracies.

We provide technology analysis and policy advice. To ensure that our work matters, we tailor it to the needs of professionals involved in political decision-making. Our written outputs range from technology explainers, which offer introductory overviews of technological developments, to concrete ideas for regulation and road maps for long-term government strategies. In addition to publishing analyses, we organise expert discussions with key stakeholders, participate in parliamentary hearings, brief politicians on emerging trends and risks, facilitate public scrutiny and criticise policy decisions that we deem ineffective or problematic.

Through our holistic approach, we examine technologies not only from a technological perspective but also within the broader contexts of technology ecosystems, key stakeholder dynamics, supply chains, regulatory frameworks and geopolitical developments.

As a tech-focused think tank, we bring together dedicated researchers from diverse disciplines in a single organisation. This enables us to develop in-depth expertise across key policy areas and create a platform that attracts talent from across Europe. Our current programmes include Cybersecurity Policy, Platform Regulation, AI Governance, Global Chips Dynamics, and Digital Rights and Governance Surveillance.

We aim to reach and support not only frontline politicians and public servants but also journalists, civil society activists and academic researchers. Many of our subscribers use our papers, events and expert opinions to understand and keep track of complex political and technological developments and debates.

All of our publications are open access and published under a creative-commons licence. We host community events open to the public and operate public-newsletter services. We believe that effective democratic decision-making needs everyone who reports on, participates in and observes the debate on political developments at the intersection of technology and society to have access to the necessary knowledge to demystify technological hype and understand relevant developments.

We have developed our own methodology to adapt to the speed and complexity of technological and social changes. We believe that the expertise needed to tackle current political and societal challenges is widely dispersed across society. Therefore, our methodology is designed to rapidly build networks of people who have the know-how to solve a certain problem, regardless of whether they work for companies, NGOs, universities or the state. When we search for experts to collaborate with, we value skills and independent thinking over seniority and academic rank. This approach allows us to rapidly gather highly technical expertise, test and refine proposals through workshops, and incorporate a diverse and wide array of perspectives in our policy recommendations.

If there is a lack of foundational research on a specific policy problem, we employ data science or algorithmic investigations with the help of our in-house team of technologists to produce the empirical basis we need. To access or collect meaningful data, we experiment with new research methodologies. We are experienced in contracting IT engineers and software companies to build the infrastructure and tools we require.

The organization was founded in 2008 in the aftermath of the financial crises driven by the conviction that to address the pressing challenges of our time the different sectors – government and adminstration, civil society, academia and the economy – need to work together.

In 2015 we began to focus our work on the intersection of technology and society. Our ambition was to fill a gap in the German think tank market and become the go-to place for policy-makers and everyone else working on information technology-related issues in Germany.

Over the past ten years, the demand from governments and other stakeholders for the above-mentioned expertise has increased dramatically. As a result, we have gradually expanded our portfolio of programmes and topics, and we have grown our team. We have also shifted our focus to European tech-policy initiatives and issues. In 2024, this led us to rebrand Stiftung Neue Verantwortung as interface – a name more suitable for an organisation that serves an international audience.

Our long-term goal is to build interface into one of the main centres of expertise on tech issues for everyone involved in the policy-making process in Europe. We will gradually expand our programme portfolio and offer policy insights to a wider audience by recruiting new talent; in the process, we will build new expert communities and networks. We will keep our headquarters in Berlin while we build a trans-European organisation with a diverse team based across the continent.

We are uncompromisingly independent (see our transparency page). We are not affiliated with any political party or movement and seek to support all political decision-makers who respect the values of democracy and pluralistic society. We do not accept financial support from the companies directly affected by the policies we address. We are able to do this by funding our work with the help of a diverse portfolio of supporters, including public institutions, charitable foundations, research organisations and, to a very limited extent, businesses.

interface is organised as a registered association in Germany ("eingetragener Verein"). Our members and the managing board are responsible for the operative and strategic development of the organisation.

Management Board

Anna Wohlfarth (Executive Director)

Advisory board

Prof. Dr. Christian Bär, DATEV
Dr. Joana Breidenbach, betterplace lab
Prof. Dr. Dietmar Harhoff, Max-Planck-Institut für Innovation und Wettbewerb
Prof. Dr. Jeanette Hofmann, WZB - Wissenschaftszentrum Berlin für Sozialforschung
Julia Kloiber, Superr Lab
Klaus Landefeld, eco – Verband der Internetwirtschaft
Christina Lang, DigitalService4Germany
Dr. Wolfgang Rohe, Stiftung Mercator
Ben Scott (PhD), Luminate
Dr. Stefan Heumann

Members

acatech - Deutsche Akademie der Technikwissenschaften e.V.
Deekeling Arndt Advisors GmbH
Deutscher Olympischer Sportbund e.V.
Egon Zehnder International GmbH 
Stephan Balzer, Berlin
Hans-Georg Oelmann, Berlin
Dr. Albrecht von Breitenbuch, Berlin
Union der deutschen Akademien der Wissenschaften e.V.
Dr. Niko Waesche, Berlin