On 27–28 November 2025 GÉANT hosted its annual CTO Workshops in Amsterdam – this year bringing together all domains (Network, Security, Trust & Identity, Above-the-Net, and Education) into a single in-person event. Designed as highly interactive sessions, the event was attended by 120 people from 40 different NRENs and partners. The new combined format’s goals were to strengthen cross-domain alignment, identify shared opportunities and collaboratively shape the technical strategic direction of the GÉANT Association.
Setting the scene: innovation and strategy
The event opened with a joint session led by Bram Peters and Klaas Wierenga from GÉANT, focusing on a cross-topic discussion about how GÉANT innovates as a service-driven organisation and what the innovation cycle looks like within GÉANT, the NRENS, and the broader community. This strategic framing provided a shared context before participants moved into domain-specific tracks.
Domain deep dives
Across the two days participants explored:
Above-the-Net: This track focused on how GÉANT and NRENs can better support Open Science and the growing demand for sovereign digital research services. Presentations covered the evolution of cloud procurement through OCRE, and explored opportunities for collaboration, co-creation, and open-sourcing in developing services such as Digital Research Environments, Pan-European Sovereign Research Data Object-Storage Infrastructure, and Research Data Transfer Infrastructure, as well as GÉANT’s role in the emerging European sovereign research ecosystem. The discussion continued around the tools and services researchers need for FAIR data management across the full research lifecycle and how these could be co-developed and provisioned within the NREN community.
Education: The education session explored how GÉANT and NRENs can support the rapidly evolving European education landscape. Key policy developments including HEIF, the European Digital Education Hub and university alliances were reviewed, followed by an overview of GÉANT’s Education Roadmap. Participants were invited to share their perspectives on priorities and the role GÉANT should play in education services through 2030.
Network: This track explored how GÉANT and NRENs can contribute to Europe’s broader digital sovereignty ambitions, with a focus on the role of the network. The session then considered how they can move to a more systematic approach for co-creating advanced network services and capabilities with Europe’s research communities, reflecting on successful examples such as Time and Frequency and fibre sensing, and how these can inform the creation of a repeatable model.
Trust & Identity: The T&I community reviewed the state of key T&I services including eduroam, eduGAIN, the Core AAI Platform and InAcademia. The session also explored how evolving funding models and the emergence of digital wallets may profoundly reshape identity service delivery. Participants discussed the future role of GÉANT and NRENs as the authentication landscape undergoes a paradigm shift.
Security: During the second day, security experts looked at the current state of GÉANT’s security activities and the nine strategic areas it focuses on. Participants then engaged in 2 rounds of group discussion:
1. Where can GÉANT lead? – exploring areas such as governance & compliance, capacity building and intelligence sharing.
2. What should we prioritise? – assessing the relative importance of the nine security focus areas in a resource-constrained environment.
Governance, policy, external perspectives
The final session stepped back from domain-specific technicalities to look at the broader context. Nicole Harris (GÉANT) delivered a cross-cutting presentation “Why Should CTOs Care About Governance and Policy?” highlighting how internet governance, legislation and policy developments shape the technological choices NRENs must make. A panel comprised of David Groep (Nikhef), Anca I. Hienola (Finnish Meteorological Institute), Michiel Leenaars (NLnet) and Anders Sjöström (Lund University) then challenged the NREN community to consider how the R&E sector must adapt to the rapidly evolving digital landscape and what researchers truly need from GÉANT’s technical roadmap.
A stronger shared direction
By bringing all workshops together, this year’s format fostered richer exchange, stronger alignment across thematic areas, and encouraged deeper collaboration on shared strategic challenges.
