ESFRI: GÉANT and NRENs Recognised as Indispensable Providers for Networking

Written by Tanja Maier and Daniela Brauner

The European Strategy Forum on Research Infrastructures (ESFRI) recently published its Landscape Analysis 2024. The report provides a comprehensive overview of the European research infrastructure (RI) ecosystem, identifies gaps, and informs future developments.

The first section of the Landscape Analysis focuses on data, computing, and digital research infrastructures, explaining the work done by e-infrastructures, like GÉANT, and predicting future trends. Read on to learn more about ESFRI and GÉANT’s support in enabling the transformation of raw research data into tomorrow’s innovations.

ESFRI acknowledging excellence

The ESFRI Landscape Analysis 2024 recognises the critical role of GÉANT and the National Research and Education Networks (NRENs) in supporting research and education in and beyond Europe. Alongside the high-performance backbone network and international connectivity offered by GÉANT and NRENs, the ESFRI report cites the importance of storage, computing and security services offered by NRENs. Moreover, it reaffirms that the trust and identity services and the specialized network support are indispensable for researchers and research collaboration:

“NRENs offer high-performance networks suited to research and education needs; they have the headroom required for the bursts in traffic and the capability to serve research collaborations like ESFRI’s with specialised network support.”

The GÉANT Association is considered a positive example of European integration and collaboration. Our services support open innovation, collaboration, and knowledge sharing not only among our members and partners, but also within the wider research and education networking community:

“[…] the GÉANT network has been developed into a world-leading network, ensuring worldclass connectivity to all European countries and making Europe a leading actor in global research networking and e-infrastructures.” 

European R&I ecosystem on the global stage

e-infrastructures are important vehicles for more efficient knowledge valorisation, i.e. the utilisation of scientific knowledge in practice. Despite the EU’s leading role in research, the Union faces challenges in transforming research and innovation results into sustainable products and solutions that benefit society.

To catalyse valorisation, i.e. the market and societal uptake of research, the entire continuum of R&I activities has to be covered. Council Conclusion 10182/24 by the Council of the European Union states that the budget for this should be adequately covered by EU funding tools. However, valorisation also relies on the expertise of knowledge and technology transfer offices and trusted partners aligning scientific, engineering, and commercial aspects of technology.

Where do GÉANT and NRENs sit in all of this?

GÉANT and the NRENs contribute to valorisation by ensuring the fast and secure transfer of research data across borders and enabling global research collaboration.

Consider the LHCONE (Large Hadron Collider Open Network Environment), implemented by 33 NRENs, four regional, and three intercontinental RENs across five continents. The flow of LHC data between Tier-1 and Tier-2 sites is made possible using NREN and GÉANT network services.

Solutions like the LHCONE are essential to process the massive amounts of data generated by the Large Hadron Collider annually. Just consider that in 2023, during Run-3 of the LHC, the CERN data centre archived up to 12.5 Petabytes per week! To put that into perspective, 1 Petabyte roughly equals 11,000 movies in 4k quality (calculated based on an average 4k movie size of 100GB). The data rates of the LHC are only predicted to increase in Run-4, where the accelerator will be upgraded to the High Luminosity Large Hadron Collider. Luminosity is proportional to the number of collisions that occur in a given amount of time. So the higher the luminosity, the more data the experiments can gather – and the higher the potential for new discoveries.

The dedicated high-capacity bandwidth provided by GÉANT and the NRENs enable a global community of 13,000 scientists near real-time access to LHC data in Tier-1 and Tier-2 sites across the world. The knowledge used and acquired from accelerating particles in the LHC have uses outside of high-energy physics, with applications ranging from security to cancer treatment. And while discovery is only the first step from research to innovation, it is here that the NRENs’ community proves its power.

The research GÉANT and NRENs support touches almost every aspect of our lives.

Want to read more?

The ESFRI Landscape Analysis was presented at the “Research Infrastructures in a Changing Global, Environmental, and Socio-economic Context” conference, held in Brussels under the Belgian Presidency of the European Council on June 4-5, 2024.

For a summary of GÉANT Chief Communications Officer Cathrin Stöver’s presentation at the conference, check out the article “What We Do in a Nutshell: GÉANT at the Research Infrastructures Conference”.

For more stories showing the difference we make, check out GÉANT IMPACT.