From Projects to Permanence: Governing Monetization in Technology-Driven European Excellence Hubs Through a Freemium-to-Premium Transition

European Excellence Hubs (EIHs) deliver most services as open-access, grant-funded offerings during their project phase. As EU funding concludes, hubs must transition selected advanced services to costrecovery or revenue-generating premium offerings. This freemium-topremium transition is not a commercial strategy decision; it is a governance challenge governed by EU financial regulations, accounting requirements, and the operational constraints of shared digital infrastructures. The mechanisms through which hubs should manage this transition remain under-specified in both research and policy. This paper proposes a Governance Maturity Model (GMM) for EIH monetization comprising four stages and five domains. The model is operationalized through a Monetization Governance Audit Checklist (MGAC) – a 20 -item diagnostic instrument that maps freemium-topremium transition readiness across the five governance domains. The MGAC is applied as a document-grounded assessment to the METACITIES Excellence Hub (Horizon Europe Grant Agreement no. 101087257) using the Business, Investment and Sustainability Plans of the project as the primary evidence source. The paper provides: (i) a GMM for EIH freemium-to-premium transitions calibrated to EU financial regulation; (ii) the MGAC as a reusable 20- item diagnostic instrument; (iii) a documentgrounded application to METACITIES Sustainability plan; and (iv) policy recommendations for integrating freemium-to-premium governance requirements into Horizon Europe WIDERA grant agreements.