RIPE NCC Strategy 2027-2031: Read the Metrics Appendix First
A five-year strategy refresh from a registry sounds like the kind of document you skim for the word "simplified" and then forget. That is roughly how I started reading this one. The new appendix on service-level strategic objectives is where it stops being routine, because that section is the first thing in a RIPE strategy that a member can hold the organisation to, and it should change how you read your invoice.
On 11 May 2026 the RIPE NCC published the updated Draft RIPE NCC Strategy 2027-2031. This is the final version before the Executive Board finalises it in June 2026. Unlike a glossy mission restatement, the changes since the previous draft are concrete: a simplified structure built around six strategic focus areas, a more detailed vision that answers feedback from the consultation period, a new appendix spelling out service-level strategic objectives for the next five years, and a set of key metrics for tracking progress. Hans Petter Holen, the Managing Director, presents it at the RIPE NCC Services Working Group session at RIPE 92 in Edinburgh next week.
I work the secondary IPv4 market, so my reflex with any RIR document is to ask what it commits the registry to do that I can hold it to. On that test, this draft is the most useful one in years, and also the one most likely to disappoint, because a metric you cannot enforce is just a nicer-sounding aspiration. Below is what actually moved, where I think it falls short, and how to file feedback before the window shuts.
What changed: from aspiration to measurable objectives
Strip away the framing and the substantive shift is small but real. Earlier RIPE strategy texts read like values statements: coordinate, serve the community, steward the resource. Worthy, but unfalsifiable. You cannot tell at year three whether "serve the community" was met or missed.
The 2027-2031 draft tries to fix that with two linked additions. The appendix defines service-level strategic objectives, stating what the organisation intends to deliver as outcomes rather than intentions. The key metrics are the measuring sticks that say whether those objectives were hit. Together they convert a five-year wish into something a member can audit at a General Meeting.
That is the genuinely new thing here, and it is why the "six focus areas" headline is the wrong thing to lead with. Reorganising a document into six buckets is presentation. Committing to metrics is governance. If you only have ten minutes with this draft, spend them on the appendix, not the structure diagram.
| Element | Previous drafts | 2027-2031 draft |
|---|---|---|
| Vision | Broad mission language | More detailed, tied to consultation feedback |
| Structure | Layered themes | Six strategic focus areas |
| Commitments | Implicit | Service-level strategic objectives (new appendix) |
| Accountability | Narrative progress reports | Named key metrics for tracking |
Where I think the metrics promise is thin
The announcement will skip past one inconvenient fact. A service-level objective from a not-for-profit membership body is nothing like a contractual SLA. There is no credit clause, no penalty, no counterparty who pays when a target slips. The enforcement mechanism is entirely political: members notice a missed metric, raise it on a mailing list or at a General Meeting, and the Executive Board feels the pressure. That works only if the metrics are specific enough to fail.
That is my worry. A metric written as "improve registration responsiveness" can never be missed, because nobody can prove it was not improved. A metric written as "median resource-request turnaround under N business days, reported quarterly" can be missed in public, which is exactly what makes it worth having. The draft introduces the category of key metrics. What it cannot yet show the membership is whether each one has a number, a cadence, and a published baseline. Strip those three properties out and an SLO appendix is decoration.
So the useful question for RIPE 92 is not "do you support measurable objectives?" Everyone supports those in the abstract. The question that bites is "which of these metrics has a hard threshold and a reporting interval, and where do we read last year's number?" That distinction separates a strategy you can hold the registry to from one you cannot.
A failure mode worth flagging, and how this draft could avoid it
In a previous role I sat through a planning cycle at a different kind of organisation that adopted a metrics framework with great ceremony and no baselines. Every objective was real; not one had a starting number. Twelve months later nobody could say whether anything had moved, because there was nothing to move from. The framework quietly reverted to narrative reporting, and the metrics page became a formality everyone scrolled past. The lesson stuck: a metric without a baseline is a slogan with a decimal point.
The RIPE draft sits at exactly the fork where that goes right or wrong. If the appendix lands with each objective carrying a current value and a target, the 2031 review will be a genuine scorecard. If it lands with targets but no baselines, members will spend five years arguing about whether the line went up. The fix is unglamorous and entirely within the Board's gift before June: publish the starting number next to every target. That single discipline is what converts a communications refresh into accountability.
The consultation window is the real news for operators
The detail buried under the strategy headline is procedural, and it has a clock on it. This is the last draft before finalisation in June 2026. After the Executive Board signs off, the document becomes the operating frame for five years, and the mailing-list channel for shaping it closes. The General Meeting in May 2026, where the membership cast 3,049 votes, has already happened; the strategy itself is settled at the Board level rather than by that ballot.
If you have a view on which metrics deserve hard thresholds, the path is the one the RIPE NCC names directly: contribute to the Members Discuss or RIPE NCC Services Working Group mailing lists, where Holen's RIPE 92 presentation will be discussed. A post there enters the official record in a way a hallway conversation in Edinburgh never will. Most members will not bother, which gives the few who do an outsized influence over the final wording. That is a practical opening rather than a grievance about apathy.
What you actually do before June depends on how you sit relative to the registry. If you rely on a specific RIPE NCC service level, name it on the working-group list and ask for a metric with a threshold attached to it. If you think a proposed metric is unmeasurable, say so on the record and propose the number and cadence you would accept in its place, because a complaint without a counter-proposal rarely moves wording.
If you only consume the registry passively, read the appendix once so the 2031 review means something to you when it arrives. And if you have no view at all, that is a legitimate position today, though it forfeits any standing to object in 2028 to a metric you could have shaped now.
About
I am Alexei Krylov, Head of Sales at InterLIR, the Berlin-based IPv4 marketplace. My days are spent inside Regional Internet Registry policy on behalf of clients who need address space allocated, leased, or transferred cleanly, which means RIR governance is not background noise to me but the terrain my deals close on.
My background pairs B2B sales with a civil-law education, and the two habits combine in how I read a document like this: I look for the clause that actually binds and the line that is only atmosphere. The RIPE NCC's strategy sets the frame my clients operate inside for the next five years, so I read every draft closely. The reading here is my own, drawn from working the registry side of this market every day; it is not the RIPE NCC's official position.
Conclusion
Here is what to carry away. The six focus areas are housekeeping; the appendix of service-level objectives paired with key metrics is the part that can make this registry measurable, and its whole value rests on whether each metric carries a real threshold, a reporting cadence, and a published baseline. Targets without baselines drift back into narrative within a single cycle, which is the failure I described above and the one most worth guarding against.
The membership has one short window, closing at the June 2026 Board finalisation, to push for metrics specific enough to fail in public. After that the document stops being a draft and becomes the frame. The single thing worth remembering is this: the appendix is the part of this strategy that will still matter in 2031, and the record that shapes it is open only until June.
Frequently Asked Questions
Four things since the previous version: a simplified structure organised around six strategic focus areas, a more detailed vision addressing consultation feedback, a new appendix defining service-level strategic objectives for the next five years, and a set of key metrics to track progress. The metrics appendix is the substantive change; the rest is largely presentation.
No. They come from a not-for-profit membership body, so there is no penalty clause or paying counterparty behind them. Enforcement is political: members hold the Executive Board accountable through the mailing lists and General Meetings. That works only when a metric is specific enough that a miss can be demonstrated publicly.
Reorganising a strategy into six buckets is presentation and changes nothing you can audit. Committing to named metrics with thresholds is what lets a member check at year three whether the registry delivered. If your reading time is limited, the accountability sits in the appendix; the structure diagram can wait.
Contribute to the Members Discuss or RIPE NCC Services Working Group mailing lists, where Hans Petter Holen's RIPE 92 presentation in Edinburgh will be discussed. This is the last draft before the Executive Board finalises it in June 2026, so the window to shape the wording closes at that finalisation.
Whether each metric has a published baseline. A target with no starting number cannot be evaluated, because there is nothing to measure movement against. Ask, for each metric, where last year's value is published and how often it will be reported; if there is no baseline and no cadence, treat it as aspiration rather than commitment.
