Announcing the winners of the Binding Hook-Munich Security Conference Essay Prize Competition

The moment we’ve all been waiting for is here! We are pleased to share the winning entries from this year’s Binding Hook-Munich Security Conference (MSC) Essay Prize Competition. 

These essays stood out from the field of quality submissions for their thoughtful, innovative, and informed answers to the question ‘Does digital sovereignty support Europe’s cybersecurity interests? And how should it be designed to strengthen European resilience?’

Read the top essays on Binding Hook now:

Thin sovereignty, thick autonomy

Winning essay by Josh Gold

‘Thin sovereignty’ – segmented according to sensitivity – and ‘thick autonomy’ – building collective resilience and governing dependencies, rather than eliminating them – are key to ensuring that sovereignty protects legitimacy without undermining resilience.

The European challenge

Second place essay by Filippo Gualtiero Blancato

Digital sovereignty is vital – and possible – for Europe’s future. Cutting off dependence on US services will hurt in the short term – and require serious investment and policy action – but the consequences of inaction are far greater. 

Engineering interdependence for Europe’s cybersecurity

Third place essay by Ian Donahue

European cybersecurity depends on rejecting the false choice between sovereignty and dependence – interdependence, via diversified, governable cloud relationships, is key.

Why control may be the wrong metric… and resilience the right one

Fourth place essay by Francesca Musiani

EU digital sovereignty efforts must reorient, from ‘strategic autonomy’ to ‘strategic exposure management’, mitigating dependencies rather than focusing strictly on their elimination. 

Can strategic reversibility help Europe finally achieve digital sovereignty? 

Fifth place essay by Nicholas Kelly

‘Strategic reversibility’, rather than ownership, is key to Europe’s digital sovereignty – the challenge is not to eliminate dependence, but to ensure that dependence cannot be readily weaponised. 

The Binding Hook-MSC Essay Prize Competition is sponsored by Google.

Check out last year’s winning essays here.