Public release of W3C’s 2025-2028 strategic objectives initiatives

I joined the World Wide Web Consortium at the end of 2023, the year it was established as a US 501(c)(3) public-interest non-profit organization. After meeting the people (staff, W3C Members, collaborators from the community, etc.), taking stock of what the almost-thirty-year-old organization needed to be stronger, and to plan our efforts to move the world forward through the web platform, I then started expanding our connections to liaise with organizations and counterparts. We used the whole first semester of 2025 to iterate and finalize W3C’s strategic objectives and thematic initiatives spanning the next 3 to 5 years, that I’m pleased to introduce publicly today.

We will be centering our guiding star on the impact W3C has, to ensure that we navigate challenges and opportunities in a way that fulfills our mission of making the web work, for everyone, by bringing together global stakeholders to develop open standards that enable a World Wide Web which connects and empowers humanity.

W3C’s impact is through its broad mandate and all-encompassing methodology: since our founding 30 years ago, W3C has played an essential role in driving to trustworthy global solutions by creating trustworthy international standards that rigorously consider accessibility, internationalization, privacy, and security. From our continued work on web standards stems a single, open, interoperable platform that interconnects humanity. That is our impact.

The following commitments serve to illustrate by way of examples the four strategic objectives for W3C:

1. Even though the web caters to over 5 billion people, the gap represented by the digital divide is increasing and we must consider what a “web for all” truly means and how to sustain expanding our support.
   Strategic objective: Diversify our support
   → Ensure we have access to appropriate resources to protect our future even in the face of change.
2. We want our trusted gathering place to welcome more far-seeing technical experts and advocates about, and for, the web, so our standards work must consider the impact it has on the world.
   Strategic objective: Enhance our impact
   → Direct our standards work through a framework that enables us to qualitatively and quantitatively define, analyze, and communicate the impact W3C intends to have.
3. Owing to our role in educating and promoting awareness of ethical and principled behaviors on the web, we must increase relationships with policymakers and regulatory bodies to advise on technical aspects and ensure that our values are represented, and to ensure we understand their needs as they impact the work that we do.
   Strategic objective: Broaden our footprint
   → Expand our reach to involve communities and community representatives to ensure a truly world-wide perspective.
4. And finally, while the landscape of our work has changed significantly in large part because of the work of our community, we must examine how well-prepared and organized we are to face these challenges and perform the necessary structural evolution and operational optimization.
   Strategic objective: Solidify our structure
   → Ensure W3C is set up to be a more resilient, adaptive, and durable organization to deliver on our mission well into the future.

These long-term objectives will be supported by five strategic initiatives that the W3C Team will execute and track over 2025-2028:

• Structural evolution: Ensure that our underlying structure and processes are fit for purpose and can effectively enable our future work.
• Impact framework: Enable W3C to qualitatively and quantitatively define, analyze, and communicate the impact we have on the world.
• Stakeholder outreach strategy: Improve our overall effectiveness by reinforcing and enhancing relationships with existing stakeholders (e.g., W3C Members, implementers, web developers, etc.) as well as finding new stakeholders that can help further advance our mission.
• Technology strategy: Maintain relevance through a focus on navigating technology evolution and newly emerging web and web-adjacent technologies.
• Policy engagement: Provide expertise and insight from our community to governing bodies and policymakers to ensure future policies are better informed by our collective knowledge and values.

In summary, we should work towards diversifying our support, finding new stakeholders that can contribute, and strengthening existing work with membership to rapidly adapt to and mitigate risks posed by our rapidly changing environment, while strengthening our organization’s structure and operations. Our positive impact will help ensure we attract more people to shape and strengthen the web, and grow ourselves in the process so we can further the virtuous circle. By adopting initiatives that support strategic objectives, we can truly realize our vision of making the web work, for everyone – a web designed for the good of its users, that is safe and secure.

I invite you to read World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) 2025-2028 Strategic Objectives and Initiatives, a public document streamlined from a document that the W3C Board of Directors approved a few weeks ago, following W3C Team and Members iteration and review.