It may sound odd to talk about 10 years of GÉANT, when our predecessors TERENA and DANTE started in the early 1990s and the GÉANT project itself long ago celebrated 20 years, but in fact it is a relatively short decade ago that the GÉANT Association was formally established following the merger of TERENA and DANTE – and in so doing brought together decades of collaborative research and education networking in Europe under the single GÉANT banner.
Looking back to October 2014, when the membership of TERENA and the shareholders of DANTE concluded the merger, the decision to restructure and form the GÉANT Association ushered in a new era, one that has moved collaboration onto a whole new level.
While it was certainly an important moment to the organisation, community and us as individual staff members, I also remember that at the same time, in Madrid where I lived in those days, we had the first case of Ebola being admitted to the local hospital. The 2014 Ebola crisis seems so very long ago and in contrast our merger sometimes still feels very recent.
The merger came as a response to the recommendations by the Reykjavik Group, which had been formed in May 2012 to prepare a response to recommendations published in 2011 in the report ‘Knowledge without Borders’ – which was produced by the GÉANT Expert Group set up by the European Commission. The new GÉANT was to become the vehicle to coordinate the community’s approach to the EC’s Horizon 2020 Programme.
In my opinion the restructure was very successful far beyond Horizon 2020. Let’s have a look back – 2014 to 2024 – at 10 years of GÉANT Values and Excellence.
From the point of view of H2020 and the GÉANT project, the last ten years have not only seen the continuity of excellence and impact, but they have also led to an extension of the scope of the project. Far from being led by the operational networking unit DANTE, focusing entirely on the delivery of the pan-European backbone, the GN4 and GN5 projects have expanded to cover Trust and Identity service development and delivery, Cloud procurement, Security, and the GÉANT Community Programme. We have also been able to negotiate Financial Framework Agreements for the entire duration of the EU’s funding cycle, the most recent example here the FPA for GN5 lasting until 2029.
This was of course only possible through the full integration of DANTE and TERENA staff. Finding the right leadership for this endeavour was not entirely easy, but when Erik Huizer was appointed interim CEO in 2017 (and confirmed in 2018) and subsequently the Amsterdam Office moved to the new office space in Amsterdam Bijlmer, we were set for leadership and growth based on jointly developed values and a new strategy developed in close collaboration with our membership. Time and effort were invested into bringing the two teams together and the all-hands events we have had over the years have created very fond memories for a carefully increased staff base who really understand what makes GÉANT special.
Looking beyond the GÉANT project, the organisation has been more than busy. Over the past 10 years, our Trust and Identity activities have grown substantially, and we have made our mark in the AARC projects and with the developments of MyAcademicID, MyAccessID, as well as the GÉANT Core AAI platform. Our Security activities have kept up with time and we are proud of the GÉANT security baseline and our current activities towards ISO certification.
Since 2016, we have been involved in the Open Science and FAIR developments as driven by the EU through EOSC. We were there at the beginning of EOSC and, just last month, we were there at the launch of the EOSC.eu node which makes use of our AAI service. We have followed the EuroHPC Hyperconnectivity plans and developments since 2020 and are eagerly awaiting the next steps taken by the HPC community. We are involved in the Time &Frequency community, we are looking at QKD and are engaged with EuroQCI.
Our international reach has grown phenomenally, due to the many projects we have been asked to lead thanks to our excellent reputation, establishing NRENs and GÉANT-like structures in other continents. And yes, all while continuously delivering seamless and utterly reliable pan-European network connectivity, transformed through the ambitious GN4-3N project, and vital for numerous research communities with whom we have a closer relationship than ever. One of our stars? Of course, eduroam. In 2023, we reached 7.5 billion eduroam authentications world-wide. That’s what a scalable federation based on a trust-model looks like.
Since 2014, the community programme has undergone changes and streamlining efforts and we are proud to have an active community of seventeen different activities under our thematic areas. Much discussion was had at the time around the re-naming of the TERENA Networking Conference, until we decided to simply keep the much-loved and established abbreviation “TNC” – and not to worry some of our more senior community members who still fondly travel once a year to “TERENA”. TNC itself has grown and developed into our flagship event for the community and by the community and with its changing location and hosts, keeps us busy from one edition to the next.
And, with so much to keep track of, our communications channels have evolved too. The CONNECT suite of channels combined the best of both worlds to deliver a magazine, newsletter, and community-fed news site and, together with our websites and extensive social media presence, has become one of our most powerful tools, well honed over the last 10 years to reflect the enormous growth in subject matter, content, and – happily – engagement. Our Annual Reports have moved online and give a snapshot of activities every year.
But, as everywhere in life, it’s not all been easy. The decision by the UK to leave the EU required us to reassess (and subsequently reconfirm) our commitment to the Cambridge Office, which became a subsidiary to the GÉANT Vereniging registered in the Netherlands. And, of course, the COVID-19 pandemic tested our ability to continue delivering our services at a time when the world and our users needed access and connectivity more than ever before. These challenges have made us stronger, brought increased agility and greater confidence. They also cemented us together at a time when they could have driven us apart.
But, like any child, GÉANT looks forward to the next birthday! So, while we celebrate 10 years of the new era, we look forward to continuous growth in the changing EU digital landscape. We look forward to adapting to the new requirements in a fast-paced, ever-changing world and doing so in harmony with our membership and community. The coming months will see the start of Lise Fuhr as GÉANT’s new CEO, the beginning of the GN5-2 project and, over the next year, the renewal of our Association strategy. It is with confidence that we look ahead, eager to do more.
Happy Birthday, GÉANT and many, many happy returns!!
