One of the key messages at the GÉANT Project Symposium in Brussels earlier this month was the growing importance of showing impact, another, was of building better data. The question of how to measure the size and reach of the GÉANT community sits at the heart of both, and the Symposium was the perfect opportunity to not only announce the latest figures, but to build consensus around what they mean.
Through combining data from the GÉANT Compendium, plus information from NREN websites, presentations, annual reports, and from NREN directors themselves we can calculate that GÉANT NRENs serve around 60 million users in Europe, via around 66,000 institutions. Or put another way, at least 1 in 10 people in Europe is a member of the GÉANT community. Quite the impact!
Gathering together all this information for the Symposium was a big task. Up to now, the GÉANT Compendium has only asked about connected users in specific categories, this, combined with other complications, like tracking the exact numbers of school pupils, has meant that only 21.8m users are included in the information published on the website, with many gaps in the data.
And these services provided by member NRENs extend far beyond connectivity, especially in some countries where the NREN provides identity services to communities far beyond traditional R&E users. As well as serving all levels of education, from schools to universities, some NRENs are the main provider of digital identity services for their governments, or support emergency services, and other critical infrastructure. They play a major role in the functioning of daily life, frequently unseen.
A new question has been added to the 2026 Compendium, asking NRENs to estimate their full reach, and to consider the full organisation that is a member of GÉANT, not just a subset. As a presentation in Brussels reminded us, NRENs are very adept at adapting services for one constituency, to the benefit of others that they serve.
The responses to this new Compendium question will be collated, and data gaps filled from other sources when necessary, and should give us a firmer evidence base. However, the question of impact will come back again and again.
We as a community will need to be adept at measuring how many people benefit from the services we provide. We will need to grapple with struggles like figuring out how we measure the number of individual users of a service without identifying individuals. How do we define a user of a service like FileSender – are the recipients and senders each unique users? Indeed, how do we prevent double counting of the doctor who is an NREN user via both their university, and their work in a teaching hospital? And does it matter?
The hope is that by quantifying impact, NRENs can receive the credit and support they are due. Often NRENs are seen solely through a national lens: this work is a reminder that the NREN is the gateway to the world and a direct connection to tens of thousands of organisations across Europe.
Data collection via the 2026 GÉANT Compendium of NRENs Survey will take place between the 26 October and 30 November, with results published on the Compendium website in Q1 of 2027, and written about in more depth in the Compendium Report 2026, due to be published in June 2027 for TNC.
