Vasilis Kostakis

Vasilis Kostakis
Βασίλης Κωστάκης
Born (1985-02-23) February 23, 1985
Ioannina, Greece
EducationUniversity of Amsterdam, Tallinn University of Technology, University of Macedonia
Known forResearch on peer production, the commons, and cosmolocalism
AwardsMichael Dower Award for Rural Resilience (2025), ERC Grant
Scientific career
FieldsCommons, Peer-to-peer, Technology Governance, Post-capitalism
WorkplacesTallinn University of Technology, Berkman Klein Center for Internet & Society (Harvard University)
Wolfgang Drechsler

Vasilis Kostakis (Greek: Βασίλης Κωστάκης; born 23 February 1985) is a Greek academic, researcher, activist and author. He is Professor of Technology Governance and Sustainability at Tallinn University of Technology[1] and a Faculty Associate at Harvard University's Berkman Klein Center for Internet & Society.[2]

His research has contributed to the development of the concepts of technofeudalism, the partner state, platform cooperativism, cosmolocalism, energy commons, and mid-tech, examining how commons-based governance and digital technologies can support socially and environmentally sustainable forms of production.[3] His work has been translated into 17 languages.[2]

In 2025, Kostakis received the inaugural Michael Dower Award for Rural Resilience, associated with the European Rural Parliament, for his contributions to the resilience and regeneration of rural communities across Europe.[4]

As an activist, he has been part of the P2P Foundation, the One Laptop per Child, and the Tallinn-based Kopli93 makerspace, among others, and is a founding member of the rural makerspace Tzoumakers, the AnotherFootball organisation, the P2P Lab, and the energy community CommonEn.

Academic career and research

Kostakis studied business administration at the University of Macedonia and the University of Amsterdam. He later completed graduate studies in technology governance at Tallinn University of Technology (TalTech), where he received his PhD in 2011 with a dissertation on the political economy of information production and the partner state approach.[5]

He joined TalTech as a researcher in 2012 and has held a professorship in the Ragnar Nurkse Department of Innovation and Governance since 2018.[6][7] Since 2017, he has also been a Faculty Associate at Harvard University's Berkman Klein Center for Internet & Society.[7][8]

His early work introduced the concept of the partner state, later developed with Michel Bauwens as a model in which public institutions enable rather than direct commons-based initiatives.[9] With Bauwens, he also explored alternative trajectories for the network economy, contrasting forms of digital capitalism with commons-oriented production.[10] Their later work introduced the concept of open cooperativism, combining peer production with cooperative ownership and governance.[11]

A major strand of Kostakis's research investigates how globally shared knowledge can support local production. His work on digital fabrication contributed to the development of the principle design global, manufacture local (DGML), in which designs and knowledge are shared globally as commons while manufacturing takes place locally.[12]

This research evolved into the concept of cosmolocalism, which links globally shared knowledge with locally embedded production, sustainability, and community autonomy.[13] Between 2019 and 2023, he led the European Research Council-funded project COSMOLOCALISM, examining the social, economic, technological, and environmental implications of this emerging mode of production.[14]

Kostakis has also contributed to research on the role of technology in degrowth and post-growth societies.[15][16] His work explores technological approaches that balance functionality, ecological limits, and democratic control. Together with collaborators, he proposed the concept of mid-tech, which seeks to combine the efficiency of advanced technologies with the accessibility, resilience, and community control associated with low-tech approaches.[17][18] More recent work has extended this framework to open-source technologies, circular economy, and technological justice.

In addition, Kostakis has studied the application of commons-based governance to energy systems. His research examines how decentralized, community-governed energy infrastructures can provide alternatives to both market-driven and centralized models of energy governance.[19][20][21]

Initiatives

In 2013, Kostakis founded the P2P Lab in Ioannina, an interdisciplinary research initiative that combines the study of the commons and technology with experimental projects in local communities.[22] He also co-founded Tzoumakers, a rural makerspace in the Tzoumerka region of Greece,[22] and CommonEn, an energy community.[23]

Public outreach

Alongside his academic work, Kostakis has written books, children's books and opinion articles on technology, the commons, artificial intelligence, energy, sustainability, and football.[24] His work has appeared in publications including Harvard Business Review,[25] Aeon,[26] Internet Policy Review,[27] The Conversation,[28] and openDemocracy,[29] as well as in major Greek newspapers and magazines.[30]

References

  1. ↑ "Vasileios Kostakis". Tallinn University of Technology. Retrieved 23 August 2026.
  2. 1 2 "Vasilis Kostakis". Berkman Klein Center for Internet & Society. Retrieved 23 August 2026.
  3. ↑ "Vasileios Kostakis: Estonia's digital success comes with a threat of technological dependence". Tallinn University of Technology. 19 March 2026. Retrieved 17 August 2026.
  4. ↑ "University supports European awards celebrating rural resilience in memory of former professor". University of Gloucestershire. 2025. Retrieved 17 August 2026.
  5. ↑ Kostakis, Vasileios (2011). "The Political Economy of Information Production in the Social Web: Towards a Partner State Approach". Tallinn University of Technology. Retrieved 17 August 2026.
  6. ↑ "Now in tenure: Vasileios Kostakis". Tallinn University of Technology. 12 March 2024. Retrieved 17 August 2026.
  7. 1 2 "Vasileios Kostakis". Tallinn University of Technology. Retrieved 17 August 2026.
  8. ↑ "Vasilis Kostakis". Berkman Klein Center for Internet & Society, Harvard University. 6 August 2026. Retrieved 17 August 2026.
  9. ↑ Bauwens, Michel; Kostakis, Vasilis (2015). "Towards a new reconfiguration among the state, civil society and the market". Journal of Peer Production. 7: 1–6.
  10. ↑ Kostakis, Vasilis; Bauwens, Michel (2014). Network Society and Future Scenarios for a Collaborative Economy. Palgrave Macmillan. doi:10.1057/9781137406897. ISBN 978-1-349-49049-3.
  11. ↑ Pazaitis, Alex; Kostakis, Vasilis; Bauwens, Michel (2017). "Digital economy and the rise of open cooperativism: the case of the Enspiral Network". Transfer: European Review of Labour and Research. 23 (2): 177–192. doi:10.1177/1024258916683865.
  12. ↑ Kostakis, Vasilis; Niaros, Vasilis; Dafermos, George; Bauwens, Michel (2015). "Design global, manufacture local: Exploring the contours of an emerging productive model". Futures. 73: 126–135. doi:10.1016/j.futures.2015.09.001.
  13. ↑ Kostakis, Vasilis; Niaros, Vasilis; Giotitsas, Chris (2023). "Beyond global versus local: Illuminating a cosmolocal framework for convivial technology development". Sustainability Science. 18 (5): 2309–2322. Bibcode:2023SuSc...18.2309K. doi:10.1007/s11625-023-01378-1.
  14. ↑ "Design Global, Manufacture Local: Assessing the Practices, Innovation, and Sustainability Potential of an Emerging Mode of Production". CORDIS. Ευρωπαϊκή Επιτροπή. Retrieved 17 August 2026.
  15. ↑ Kostakis, Vasilis; Seitanidis, Sokratis (2026). "Design global, manufacture local: Operationalizing post-growth industrial policy through cosmolocalism". Globalizations: 1–14. doi:10.1080/14747731.2026.2660493.
  16. ↑ Kostakis, Vasilis; Latoufis, Kostas; Liarokapis, Minas; Bauwens, Michel (2018). "The convergence of digital commons with local manufacturing from a degrowth perspective: Two illustrative cases". Journal of Cleaner Production. 197: 1684–1693. Bibcode:2018JCPro.197.1684K. doi:10.1016/j.jclepro.2016.09.077.
  17. ↑ Kostakis, Vasilis; Pazaitis, Alex; Liarokapis, Minas (2023). "Beyond high-tech versus low-tech: A tentative framework for sustainable urban data governance". Big Data & Society. 10 (1) 20539517231180583. doi:10.1177/20539517231180583.
  18. ↑ Kostakis, Vasilis; Dalakoglou, Dimitris (2025). "How to reconcile technology and justice in the circular economy: the innovation of open-source mid-tech solutions". Sustainability: Science, Practice and Policy. 21 (1) 2546166: 1–9. Bibcode:2025SSPP...2146166K. doi:10.1080/15487733.2025.2546166.
  19. ↑ Giotitsas, Chris; Nardelli, Pedro H. J.; Kostakis, Vasilis; Narayanan, Arun (2020). "From private to public governance: The case for reconfiguring energy systems as a commons". Energy Research & Social Science. 70 101737. arXiv:2008.04028. Bibcode:2020ERSS...7001737G. doi:10.1016/j.erss.2020.101737. PMC 7424385. PMID 32835009.
  20. ↑ Kostakis, Vasilis; Giotitsas, Chris; Kitsikopoulos, Dimitris (2024). "Envisioning energy futures through visual images: What would a commons-based energy system look like?". Energy Research & Social Science. 118 103745. doi:10.1016/j.erss.2024.103745.
  21. ↑ Giotitsas, Chris; Nardelli, Pedro H. J.; Williamson, Stephen; Roos, Andreas; Pournaras, Evangelos; Kostakis, Vasilis (2022). "Energy governance as a commons: Engineering alternative socio-technical configurations". Energy Research & Social Science. 84 102354. Bibcode:2022ERSS...8402354G. doi:10.1016/j.erss.2021.102354.
  22. 1 2 Papadimitropoulos, Vangelis (2024). "The digital commons, cosmolocalism, and open cooperativism: The cases of P2P Lab and Tzoumakers". Organization. 31 (6): 970–993. doi:10.1177/13505084231156268.
  23. ↑ "Vasilis Kostakis". Berkman Klein Center for Internet & Society. Harvard University. 6 August 2026. Retrieved 21 August 2026.
  24. ↑ Kostakis, Vasilis (2025). Beyond the Final Whistle: Football for a Better World. London: Pluto Press. ISBN 9780745350738.
  25. ↑ Kostakis, Vasilis; Roos, Andreas (1 June 2018). "New Technologies Won't Reduce Scarcity, but Here's Something That Might". Harvard Business Review. Retrieved 21 August 2026.
  26. ↑ Kostakis, Vasilis; Drechsler, Wolfgang (30 April 2018). "Utopia now". Aeon. Retrieved 21 August 2026.
  27. ↑ Khattar, Pranay; Kostakis, Vasilis (24 March 2026). "Mining the commons: AI extraction, Wikipedia, and the case for a multi-stakeholder settlement". Internet Policy Review. Retrieved 21 August 2026.; Kostakis, Vasilis; Tympas, Aristotle (8 December 2025). "AI as commons: Why we need community-controlled Artificial Intelligence". Internet Policy Review. Retrieved 21 August 2026.
  28. ↑ Kostakis, Vasilis; Ramos, Jose (11 October 2017). "Design global, manufacture local: a new industrial revolution?". The Conversation. Retrieved 21 August 2026.; Kostakis, Vasilis; De Filippi, Primavera; Drechsler, Wolfgang (3 May 2017). "Can blockchain, a swiftly evolving technology, be controlled?". The Conversation. Retrieved 21 August 2026.
  29. ↑ Kostakis, Vasilis (28 July 2017). "Capital in the twenty-first century, and an alternative". openDemocracy. Retrieved 21 August 2026.; Bauwens, Michel; Kostakis, Vasilis (6 March 2017). "Cooperativism in the digital era, or how to form a global counter-economy". openDemocracy. Retrieved 21 August 2026.; Bauwens, Michel; Kostakis, Vasilis (20 January 2017). "From the communism of capital to capital for the commons". openDemocracy. Retrieved 21 August 2026.; Bauwens, Michel; Kostakis, Vasilis (7 January 2017). "A new post-capitalist ecosystem of value creation". openDemocracy. Retrieved 21 August 2026.
  30. ↑ Kostakis, Vasilis. "Essays". Vasilis Kostakis. Retrieved 21 August 2026.
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