Work Package Leads, Coordinators, the Project Management Office, as well as the project’s Oversight and Quality Assurance committees met in Amsterdam in the third week of January to kick off the latest stage of the successful GÉANT project collaboration. GN5-2 is the second of the formal project proposals (Specific Grant Agreements – SGAs) within the 7-year strategic framework agreed between the GÉANT consortium and the European Commission as part of Horizon Europe. With a 30-month duration and funding of €80 million, GN5-2 will deliver faster, more resilient, and secure connectivity infrastructure alongside enhanced collaboration services, from enabling easy, compliant, and cost-effective consumption of cloud services via the new OCRE 2024 Framework to delivering innovative and distributed trust and identity infrastructure and services, and supporting Open Science. GN5-2 will also reinforce the network security and its operation in a federated approach, and foster collaborations to innovate and strengthen Europe’s sustainable connectivity with other world regions.
Over two days, the project management and leadership discussed the project plans in the individual work packages, as well as horizontal activities, such as onboarding new contributors to the project in the most effective way, budget and resource management processes, as well as security matters and data management activities across the project. The 35 kick-off participants also looked at internal challenges such as preventing the creation of silos between work packages and the need to ensure the delivery of value to the NREN partners and via the NRENs connected institutions.
Tryfon Chiotis, GÉANT’s Chief Programmes Officer said: “The enthusiasm and commitment from the governance and leadership in the GÉANT project is one reason for the projects’ remarkable 25 year success story. The GN5-2 leadership team consisting of subject matter experts and managers experienced in multi-country, multi-domain multi-cultural environments will ensure that our success continues. It is a pleasure for me to work in such a vibrant project environment.”
The GÉANT Project has been running for almost 25 years, supporting Europe’s research and education communities, and with its 38 project partners (together with the GÉANT Association) representing all of Europe’s National Research and Education Networks (NRENs) and serving as an excellent example of pan-European collaboration.
