The leaders of the institution that manages the pan-European network (GÉANT), share -in this new chapter of the series of the views of regional research and education network leaders- their perceptions about the role of research and education networks and the importance of global collaboration.

What comes to your mind when you hear that a researcher is talking about collaboration?
Niels: It is a major strength that there is a shared willingness among researchers around the world to work together for the benefit of mankind. The ability to collaborate is dependent on having the correct infrastructure in place, and it is out of a desire to help collaborative work around the globe that many of us are here at DANTE. RedCLARA is another good example of how well things can work when that drive to support collaboration is there.

Matthew: Collaboration creates general benefits for society at many levels. It brings people with similar skills together to work towards a common goal, creating what we call the research village, that is to say the idea that no matter how geographically far apart people are, they can work closely together.

What would you identify as the main importance of research and education networks?
Niels: In addition to the support R&E networks give to research, we must also remember the important role of facilitating education. It is also essential that we continue to work to break down the digital divide, a topic which is very dear to the European Commission in contrast to commercial providers.

Matthew: Absolutely, it is crucial that we create equality of opportunity for people all around the world to access their peers and partners in the research and education community both locally and globally.

How would you describe the role of GÉANT at both a regional and a global level?
Matthew: Within Europe, GÉANT acts as the common community for European researchers and also as a society of European NRENs in which they can collaborate on new services. Globally we see GÉANT very much as being at the heart of the Research and Education Village. An example of this is the fact that GÉANT enables the exchange of connectivity between other world regions.

Niels: DANTE has nearly 20 years’ experience of establishing regional research and education networks. This experience is something we have shared and continue to do so with other world regions.

Matthew: In addition to providing connectivity, GÉANT also provides services to meet user needs within Europe. This is again something that we can share with other world regions. The ELCIRA project led by RedCLARA, and which DANTE and GÉANT are closely involved in, is an example of how we can share experiences of services and work to create interregional services which benefit global collaborations.

How important for GÉANT is collaboration with other regional networks and in what ways do you collaborate at a global level?
Niels: International collaboration is key for us. DANTE has put a lot of effort into supporting other regional networks over the years, with the support of European Commission (EC) funding, meaning that connectivity costs between regions have always been shared. We have also helped other networks justify to their local funding bodies the importance of Research and Education Networks.

Matthew: For the EC-funded regional projects, DANTE has acted as the conduit between the European Commission and the regions. This has helped to create very powerful links between the regions and Europe. But as organisations such as RedCLARA in Latin America and the TEIN* Cooperation Center in the Asia-Pacific region adopt the role of managing the EC-funded projects, DANTE continues to work closely with them to support them in their work.

How do you think global collaboration among regional networks will change in the coming years?
Niels: We will see a change in the difference in the capacities provided by smaller networks and the larger ones. Gradually, connectivity will grow to the point where there is greater equality in bandwidth across world regions.

Matthew: Providing sufficient bandwidth between regions will continue to be an important part of global collaboration, but the major focus will be on the provision of interregional services which facilitate global collaboration.

Could you describe your vision of R&E networks in the future?
Matthew: For big projects the issue will continue to be about providing unconstrained bandwidth which commercial providers are not interested in providing, given the bursting nature of research networking. More and more, we will be working together to serve large science projects which are distributed around the globe, work which would be impossible without high bandwidth. Research projects which depend on data from the European Southern Observatory in Chile and the Pierre Auger Observatory in Argentina are good examples of this.

Beyond the issue of bandwidth, the quality of the services provided on R&E networks will be very important, be they for network monitoring, bandwidth-on-demand connectivity, eduroam, global access to services via federations, collaboration tools, etc.

Niels: It is vital that we keep significantly ahead of the commercial providers and try out things which are not commercially attractive. We have to deliver the unthinkable.