The 2019 GÉANT Annual Report is now live. The report, available for the third consecutive year in digital format only, highlights the diverse activities and many achievements of the GÉANT Association in a dynamic and easy-to navigate layout with the use of intuitive and informative infographics. In a very eventful year for the organisation, great progress has been made in the key areas of community, network, trust and identity, cloud services, user communities and the GN4-3/N Project.
In the Foreword, Christian Grimm, Chair of the GÉANT Board of Directors, reflecting on the evolution of the digital and political landscape in which GÉANT operates, highlights the organisation’s relationship with the European Commission which places ‘GÉANT in the limelight of new requirements coming from Brussels with an impact on 2020 and beyond’. Christian also reflects on how ‘the start of new projects remains a constant for GÉANT. With GN4-3 and GN4-3N, GÉANT entered the last phase of its core project under Horizon 2020’ and how the ‘total funding of €128M until the end of 2022 enables GÉANT to establish a new network and make the European NREN community ready for the challenges of the EC’s 9th framework programme.’
In the Strategy and Vision section Erik Huizer, CEO of GÉANT, reflects on the impact of the role of NRENs and the importance of open standards, open data and open-source and ‘how this mindset towards open and sharing reflects the community we serve and helps to stimulate initiatives like shared research, online education and shared data.’ His closing remarks have special resonance with the global community in the current climate: ‘We believe that we need the help of all researchers and teachers in the world to battle the big societal challenges that we are facing. An outbreak like COVID-19 shows us that we can only win those battles if we cooperate on a worldwide scale, sharing our findings and building on each other’s results. GÉANT and the NRENs are here to make that possible in an easy and secure way.’
For the full report visit:
https://ar2019.geant.org/
