On 3 and 4 March 2026, NRENs from across Europe and beyond gathered in Lisbon, Portugal, for hybrid sessions bringing together the Special Interest Groups on Marketing and Communications (SIG-Marcomms) and Management of Service Portfolios (SIG-MSP). Hosted by the Portuguese NREN, FCCN, the meetings reflected a growing recognition within the GÉANT community: that the people who build services and the people who communicate them need to work as one.
The programme spanned three different but connected sessions: the SIG-MSP community met first to explore their own challenges around service launches, metrics, and portfolio management. Then both communities came together in a joint session to examine what happens when marketing and service management are designed in concert from day one. The afternoon then gave SIG-Marcomms members space to take those shared insights further, digging into user journeys, AI tools, and the evolving communications landscape.
SIG-MSP meeting: what’s hot, and how do you market it?
The SIG-MSP afternoon opened with a welcome and service portfolio overview from João Nuno Ferreira (FCCN), before turning to how NRENs are launching and positioning new services. Harold Teunissen (SURF) presented two pre-service examples: Time and Frequency Transfer and Campus Network as a Service, with lessons shared about the complexities of piloting a service that is “too big to fail”. Barbara Pinculić (CARNET) followed by exploring the intersection of design thinking and public value for the launch of the BrAIn project within the Croatian education community.
The second part of the afternoon looked at what comes after the launch of a new service: how NRENs measure success, manage relat
ionships, and sustain momentum. Ariela Herček (ARNES) reflected on how to handle user needs, including a collaboration with UC Berkeley on UX design as well as surveys, interviews and questionnaires as other ways to gather user feedback. Next, Maria Ristkok (EENet) and Eva Nestorovska (PSNC) drew on ten years of experience with NREN co-creation in cloud frameworks, and Koos Kruithof (SURF) examined how to grow SURF Vendor Compliance service past its early successes. A closing update from Nicole Harris (GÉANT) on Atlassian and potential next steps and alternatives for our community.
The afternoon had already raised the question that would carry into the next day: at what point in the service lifecycle should marketing enter the picture, and what changes when it enters earlier?
Joint SIG-Marcomms and SIG-MSP meeting: collaboration and co-creation between marketing experts and service owners
The joint morning session was welcomed by Salomé Branco (FCCN). After that, Joana Silvério (FCCN) walked the audience through how FCCN’s marketing supports services through their life cycle and presented the example of IAedu’s branding and website development. Lars Fuglevaag (Sikt) followed with a presentation on the unified brand strategy of the Norwegian NREN across marketing, communications and service design, and Lonneke Walk (SURF) on SURF’s portfolio rebranding and alignment with the NREN’s value proposition. Each presentation approached the same challenge of co-creation between marcomms experts and service owners from a different angle.
Jennifer Ross (GÉANT) then provided an update on the Compendium, which has undergone a refresh which makes connecting the dots between the highlights and finding the story behind all answers from across the community much easier and user friendlier. Rafael Horigome (RNP) followed with a presentation on the Secure Storage Network (RAS) Pilot, for which early alignment between marketing and service development marked a turning point for the success of the pilot: personas were mapped jointly, the service was positioned collaboratively and a playbook was designed for sales autonomy.
The session closed with an engaged Q&A during which participants online and in person continued to explore what might become possible if both communities worked together from the very beginning of every project.
SIG-Marcomms session: user journeys, AI tools, and the future of communications
The afternoon session was for SIG-Marcomms members, but it carried the morning’s momentum forward. Where the joint session had asked what collaboration between marcomms and service owners could look like, the afternoon went deeper into how that plays out in practice.
The first session examined how communications teams shape the full user experience, from discovery and onboarding through to ongoing support. Diana and Mangyeri Asiimwe (RENU) shared the Ugandan NREN’s approach and involvement in user support, from strategy to policy and operations. Richard Tatnall, Phil Scoble-Ash and Joe Allan (Jisc) presented the promotional activities following Jisc’s newly launched SOC, and Charllotte Søbye (DeiC) closed the sessions with a detailed account of how her team led the rebuild of their website from the ground up, taking ownership of every steps focusing on value and user experience. As DeiC is thinking of incorporating an AI-powered bot to help users navigate the website, especially researchers looking for the right computing facility for their research, the conversation organically moved to AI topics.
Andrea Meloni (GÉANT) presented on the role of generative AI for website development, especially how important it has become to have AI-optimised websites to avoid NREN misrepresentation online. Similarly, Leonie Schafer (DFN) stressed the importance of making policy meaning legible to AI, which, in turn, increases NRENs’ visibility as strategic policy actors.
Many thanks to FCCN for their generous hosting, to all speakers for sharing their expertise, and to everyone who attended and made the discussions so rich. All slides can be found on the SIGs’ wiki pages – (SIG-MSP and SIG-Marcomms). If you are interested in marketing, communications, or service management topics, subscribe to the respective mailing lists to stay updated on future events.
Learn more about SIG-Marcomms and SIG-MSP. Both SIGs are part of the GÉANT Community Programme. For more information, visit community.geant.org.
