2025 has been a year of progress for the GÉANT community—a year in which we balanced deep strategic thinking with the practical reality of delivering for Europe’s research and education landscape. As Chair of the Board, I am proud to reflect on how our community once again demonstrated its ability to unite around shared challenges, embrace change, and prepare for the future with confidence.
Throughout the year, discussions with our members underscored the evolving role of NRENs across Europe. The impact of expanding mandates of different NRENs sparked debate on how national responsibilities are widening and how GÉANT must adapt in tandem. These conversations were honest and forward-looking, and they helped shape our strategic thinking and direction for 2026–2030—identifying what we must continue, where we must innovate, and where longstanding practices may need to evolve so that GÉANT remains the home of NREN service and collaboration.
Our focus on organisational resilience also advanced meaningfully. The adoption of a new cash reserve policy recognises the need to strengthen the Association’s financial foundation and flexibility, reinforcing our commitment to long‑term sustainability. In parallel, the Articles of Association working group made notable progress to align our foundational documents with a governance structure that is suited for a fast‑moving European digital policy and funding environment. These steps ensure that GÉANT will remain both stable and adaptable in the years ahead.
Technologically, 2025 brought a significant milestone in our recent history: the launch of Europe’s federated, ultra‑high‑bandwidth network for supercomputing, building on our new and European-built backbone routers.
Through the partnership with GÉANT and the NRENs, our upgraded infrastructure expands Europe’s ability to interconnect EuroHPC supercomputers, AI factories, quantum facilities, and national research centres. It is a major step toward a hyperconnected scientific landscape and a strong validation of our community’s expertise and reliability.
Our committees and governance bodies also saw renewal. The election and re-election of members to the GPPC and the Board ensure that our planning, oversight, and strategic alignment continue to benefit from a breadth of expertise and long-standing commitment. I am grateful to all who put themselves forward and to those who continue to serve the community.
Looking ahead, GÉANT stands at an important inflection point. Technological demands are increasing, the European policy environment is shifting, and expectations of digital infrastructure providers continue to grow. Over the coming year, I will work closely with the Board, the Executive team, and our members to help finalise and introduce the new strategy and to secure the Association’s long-term resilience.
My sincere thanks go to our members, partners, colleagues, and the entire GÉANT community. Together, through our shared values and mutual trust, we continue to build a stronger, more connected future for European research and education.
2025 was a year defined by momentum, resilience, and the strength of our community and it was my first full year as CEO of the GÉANT Association. It was a great pleasure to get to know the community and to experience firsthand what we are capable of achieving together.
From the very start, we demonstrated what is possible when expertise, infrastructure, and collaboration come together with purpose.
One of the year’s earliest breakthroughs—our practical Quantum Key Distribution demonstration across 254 km of standard telecom fibre—showcased how our community can turn emerging technologies into real-world capability, using the networks we already operate and trust.
As the year progressed, we reinforced our commitment to security and reliability by achieving ISO 27001 certification. In a Europe where cross border digital collaboration is growing rapidly, this milestone underscored our dedication to transparency, maturity, and best practice in information security.
We then saw the GÉANT community gather in record numbers, with more than 900 participants from 72 countries joining us for our largest TNC to date. The diversity, curiosity, and energy on display reminded us why this community is so unique—and why it continues to inspire.
Mid‑year, our backbone restructuring programme, GN4‑3N (2019-2023), was nominated for a European Digital Connectivity Award, reflecting the engineering excellence and forward-looking design that underpin our work. Later, we brought GÉANT’s and our members’ voice to Brussels for our first multi‑stakeholder policy conference with 65 high-level representatives of the European NREN community and officials of six different Directorate Generals of the European Commission coming together. Despite national disruptions, our community showed up, engaged deeply, and ensured that research and education networking remained firmly on the policy agenda also in Brussels. Well done, all!
October was also the month we opened a one-person office in Brussels to help focus on the MFF negotiations but also being the eyes and ears of the GÉANT Association. We have already gotten positive feedback from our stakeholders in Brussels on the move.
Toward the end of the year, our Fibre Sensing Task in GN5‑2 delivered another powerful demonstration of what our infrastructure can enable. Using Distributed Acoustic Sensing on a live production fibre, the team showed how research networks can serve as scientific instruments—detecting everything from road traffic to low‑flying aircraft—once again expanding our understanding of what is possible.
Throughout this period, we continued our internal restructuring and advanced the development of a new association strategy—work that ensures GÉANT remains agile, ambitious, and equipped for the opportunities ahead.
But progress this year was not only strategic or technological—it was also deeply human. The launch of the Humanitarian Support Group for NRENs stands as a powerful reflection of our community’s values. Inspired by the extraordinary support offered to URAN, the Ukrainian NREN, this new structure ensures that solidarity can be mobilised quickly and effectively when any NREN faces crisis or disruption. It reinforces what many of us know instinctively: the strength of GÉANT lies not only in its physical networks but in its human networks too.
Looking back on 2025, one thing is undeniable: our work matters, our impact is growing, and our community—collaborative, resilient, and committed—continues to deliver for Europe and for global research and education. I am looking forward to continuing the excellent work we are doing together in 2026 and to finalise our strategy for 2026-2030.
Exabytes of data carried on the GÉANT network
Billion eduroam authentications
Reached in cloud services since inception
Attendees at TNC25
Attendees at CTO workshops 2025
The extensive work to collaboratively formulate a new GÉANT Association strategy for the period 2026-2030 got underway in early 2025 with an Exec team retreat followed by a Board meeting to agree the process and plan the work ahead. Input was then gathered from the General Assembly, community, external stakeholders, and all staff, leading to a first draft by July in time for discussions at a joint Board and Exec retreat.
Following this, a staff all-hands in September and the CTO workshops in November provided further input and validation, and by the end of the year a later version was recommended to the Board.
In early 2026 the General Assembly was again consulted and the document further evolved prior to its anticipated launch at TNC26.
The GÉANT Association Strategy 2026-2030 is therefore the result of extensive consultation with our members, stakeholders, and staff, and positions the GÉANT Association to secure a successful future in a rapidly changing landscape. By enabling the platform where member NRENs unite and collaborate, together we will drive this strategy forward for the benefit of the whole GÉANT community.
In preparation for the launch of the new GÉANT Association strategy, a new visual identity was prepared consisting of a logo and color palette.Created entirely in-house by our design team, the new logo reflects the trend for brands to move toward a letter or symbol once they become sufficiently well known, and because this supports the digital-first need that prioritises scalability, screen readability, and adaptability across platforms.Our new logo is not only a representation of the letter G but is created from the three main elements (seen in the ‘nodes’) of GÉANT, our membership, and the user community.
The connections radiating from the centre of the symbol are invisible as, in real life, they cross physical and virtual boundaries.
The ambition of the logo is to reinforce the importance of collaboration and our unique environment of elements acting together for the benefit of all.Use of colour is also important: research has shown that there are five core dimensions of brand personality; the most appropriate for the GÉANT Association is competence: and here brands seek to convey reliability, intelligence, success and efficiency. Based on colour psychology, several colours are associated with these traits with blue the primary competence colour. Popular with numerous technology brands, blue also works extremely well with a number of supporting colours and is highly rated for accessibility.The new logo and colour palette will be launched in June 2026.
The Association’s commitment to innovation was reinforced in 2025 through a series of ambitious new initiatives.
In June, the GÉANT community came together for TNC25 in Brighton, our largest TNC to date, welcoming 900+ participants from 72 countries under the theme Brighter Together. Hosted by Jisc, the week opened with a clear call for collaboration across research and education networking and quickly set the tone for an intense and inspiring programme of plenaries, parallel sessions, Lightning Talks, BoFs, side meetings, and an expanded Community Hub at the heart of the conference. New for 2025, the TNC Exchange brought partner presentations directly onto the conference floor, fostering open dialogue in an innovative and informal format.
Beyond the sessions, TNC25 celebrated the strength and diversity of the community. Highlights included the Conference Dinner on Brighton’s Palace Pier, complete with rides, dodgems, and shared moments that reflected the unique spirit of TNC. As the conference closed, reflections from across the community reinforced the collective impact of GÉANT and the NRENs: supporting research, empowering education, strengthening digital sovereignty, and advancing trusted, resilient infrastructure for Europe and beyond. TNC25 powerfully demonstrated what we can achieve when we act together — truly Brighter Together.
Both the Vietsch Foundation Medal of Honour and the GÉANT Community Award were presented during the opening plenary of TNC25 in Brighton. The 2025 Vietsch Medal of Honour was awarded to Cathrin Stöver, Chief Communications Officer of GÉANT. The award recognises her long‑standing and impactful contributions to the global research and education networking community, particularly her work in strengthening international NREN collaboration, enhancing engagement with the European Commission, championing Women in STEM, and shaping GÉANT’s strategic narrative. The Foundation highlighted her sustained leadership and community‑building impact over nearly three decades of service.
The GÉANT Community Award 2025 was presented to Ronan Byrne, CEO of HEAnet, and Nicole Harris, Senior Trust and Security Manager at GÉANT, in recognition of their outstanding and sustained contributions to the GÉANT community. Ronan Byrne was honoured for over two decades of leadership within the NREN ecosystem, including his role as Community Chair of the Network Infrastructure Advisory Committee, his service on the GÉANT Board, and his key contributions to major initiatives such as the GN4‑3N network project and the EuroHPC Connectivity tender. Nicole Harris was recognised for her long‑standing leadership in trust, security and incident response, notably through her work with TF‑CSIRT, the TRANSITS training programme, REFEDS, and a broad portfolio of security‑focused community initiatives. Together, their efforts have strengthened collaboration, trust, and capacity across European and global research and education networking, exemplifying the community spirit at the heart of GÉANT.
The establishment of a GÉANT presence in Brussels in October 2025 reflects a strategic investment in safeguarding the interests of the research and education community in an increasingly complex geopolitical environment. Policy and funding decisions affecting R&E are shaped as much by relationships and trust as by technical merit, making sustained engagement with European institutions essential. The Brussels office enables GÉANT to clearly articulate the collective value of our members, align GÉANT and NREN activities with European policy priorities, and ensure that our community’s voice is heard where decisions are made. By highlighting the public‑service nature of NRENs, GÉANT’s unique federated model, and its reach to more than 50 million users across 10,000 institutions, the Brussels presence strengthens recognition of the community’s contribution to European digital sovereignty. For members, this new presence has the potential for stronger visibility, better‑informed policymaking, and improved conditions for future collaboration, funding, and long‑term sustainability.
Equally, in October, GÉANT hosted its first multistakeholder policy event in Brussels, bringing together around 65 high‑level representatives from the GÉANT membership, six Directorates‑General of the European Commission, EU Member States, and the university and library communities. The event provided a timely forum to reflect on the GÉANT community’s recent achievements and to discuss future priorities for GÉANT and NRENs amid rapid digital transformation, a shifting geopolitical context, and an upcoming EU funding cycle. Discussions focused on aligning community strengths with European strategic priorities through the European Research Area (ERA). The event laid the groundwork for sustained dialogue between GÉANT, European NRENs and Commission institutions, strengthening mutual understanding and supporting continued collaboration in the service of research, science and innovation across Europe.
Together with our members, GÉANT continued in 2025 to support major pan‑European and global research communities by strengthening infrastructure, services and collaboration across disciplines. Efforts focused on improving the analysis and movement of large scientific datasets through advanced network tools and the DTN Testing Facility, while further enhancing connectivity and service coordination for EUMETSAT. GÉANT maintained our commitment to enabling access to Copernicus data in cooperation with the European Space Agency and commercial cloud providers. Support for emerging and strategic research areas included quantum communication and quantum key distribution, as well as engagement with large‑scale science initiatives such as the LHC, SKA and ITER to anticipate their future requirements. Additional priorities included facilitating data transport for Earth observation research, advancing plans for a European time and frequency network with NRENs and European metrology institutes, and strengthening support for life sciences through trusted research environments and alignment with EOSC‑A Health Data activities.
GÉANT plays a central role in delivering EuroHPC hyperconnectivity, providing the ultra‑high‑bandwidth, secure pan‑European network that underpins Europe’s federated supercomputing ecosystem. Awarded in September 2025 by the EuroHPC Joint Undertaking, this infrastructure will interconnect EuroHPC supercomputers, national HPC centres, AI factories, quantum facilities, and research data centres, enabling seamless, high‑performance data movement across borders. Built on the trusted GÉANT and NREN infrastructures, hyperconnectivity goes beyond basic networking, offering terabit‑scale capacity, resilience, and security to support data‑intensive workloads such as modelling, simulation and artificial intelligence, while strengthening Europe’s digital sovereignty.
The service will be delivered in close collaboration with Europe’s NRENs, reinforcing GÉANT’s position as a key enabler of the continent’s exascale computing ecosystem.
Together with the launch of the EOSC EU Node in 2024, GÉANT joining the EOSC Federation in 2025, and the EuroHPC Federation Platform coming in 2026, this establishes a unified, secure access point to Europe’s research and supercomputing resources – all developed with the support of GÉANT and our partners.
The strong and stable backbone network saw continued growth in traffic levels, with 3.6 exabytes of data moved across the network in 2025, reflecting the ever-increasing demands of research and scientific collaboration across Europe. In this time, the Network Operations Centre handled 23 Priority 1 (loss of service) outages, resolving them in an average of two hours, and managed 1,581 Priority 2 incidents (loss of resilience) across both GÉANT infrastructure and customer domains. Despite this volume, the team maintained exceptional responsiveness, meeting the five‑minute response target in 98% of all cases. This performance aligns with our commitment to delivering services “as one community” and ensuring consistent quality across the entire ecosystem.
A major milestone in the long‑term evolution of the GÉANT backbone was the completion of the transition from the Juniper routed layer to the Nokia routed layer, involving the transition of 1,240 services. The GÉANT Automation Programme (GAP) provided the structural foundation for this work, ensuring that the transition could be delivered efficiently and with minimal disruption.
After building three new sites and transitioning 29 existing sites, the last site to transition is Geneva. Preparation and planning happened in 2025, but the transition will be executed in the first weeks of 2026.
Operational and efficiency improvements remained a central focus, ensuring that GÉANT and its members can continue to build on the automation platform to deliver operational efficiency.
Key achievements included:
Innovation remained a defining theme of the year, reflecting GÉANT’s commitment to advancing the capabilities of research networking while at the same time transitioning to a new state-of-the-art routing platform.
Among the key developments:
In 2025 GÉANT successfully launched the OCRE 2024 Framework, the most recent iteration of GÉANT’s flagship Cloud Frameworks that since 2016 have enabled easy, compliant, and cost-effective consumption of commercial cloud services for European research and education institutions. Usage of the frameworks continued to grow, with over 1,100 institutions across 29 countries actively consuming services via the framework and an estimated 10% increase in yearly consumption, expected to surpass a total cumulative value of €500M.
Throughout the year, GÉANT strengthened its operational security and its offering of security services, boosted intelligence sharing, advanced crisis-readiness and security awareness within the NREN community, while pushing forward for security innovation. As of the end of 2025, 230 universities and research institutions have now adopted eduVPN as their corporate VPN solution. Security Days, originally intended as a one-off event, became a returning event and brought over 150 security professionals from throughout the community together in Prague.
The eduGAIN interfederation service now has 83 members participating with 7 candidate countries. At the end of 2025, over 10,100 entities are supporting eduGAIN (6,200 Identity Providers and 3,900 Service Providers) and eduroam is available in 45,000 locations in 112 territories with an average of over 21 million national and international authentications every day. 9.2 billion authentications were recorded in 2025.
In 2025 the MyAccessID service provided the AAI for EOSC and successfully connected all the (candidate) EOSC nodes serving around 55,000 registered users. Driven by the success in EOSC, MyAccessID was also selected as the AAI for the EuroHPC Federation platform that connects researchers to the European HPC and AI facilities. The MyAcademicID service, built on the same technical foundation, has been used by a number of University Alliances as well as for Erasmus without paper and served almost 700,000 registered users.
Finally, the DC4EU (Digital Credentials for Europe) was concluded, the project that provided a blueprint for the use of academic identities and services in a fast-evolving landscape with the arrival of EIDASv2 and the EU Identity Wallet.
GÉANT’s project management activities started the year strongly, with a streamlined and cost-effective kick-off meeting in Amsterdam (left) for the GN5‑2 project, bringing together Work Package Leaders and Governance representatives for a focused cross-activity session. This continued into March with a positive EC review for Period 2 of the GN5-1 project, followed in May by a successful ISO27001 audit that reaffirmed GÉANT’s commitment to security and operational excellence. Throughout September and October, GÉANT submitted several major proposals, including that to act as Coordinator for the EOSC4ALL project, while continuing to make significant progress in preparing for the upcoming pillar assessment. 2025 finished on a high note with the securing of €60 million in funding for the GN5‑3 project under Work Programme 2026–27, ensuring the continued advancement of GÉANT’s mission in the years ahead.
In 2025, GÉANT played a pivotal role in the AfricaConnect3 project by facilitating high-speed connectivity expansion, strengthening digital identities through eduGAIN, and providing training to National Research and Education Networks (NRENs) across Africa. The project supported the expansion of the WACREN backbone, connecting six new countries and establishing a critical 10Gbps link between Lagos and Cape Town to connect WACREN with South Africa’s SANReN and the UbuntuNet Alliance region. In addition, the AfricaConnect3 project helped onboard five new African members to the eduGAIN community, improving secure cross-border collaboration.
After 10 years of successful coordination, GÉANT played a critical role in concluding the EaPConnect project in 2025. Focusing on sustainability, strengthening partnerships, and finalising the integration of Eastern Partnership (EaP) National Research and Education Networks (NRENs) and transitioning the beneficiary NRENs (in Armenia, Azerbaijan, Georgia, Moldova, and Ukraine) into long-term, full-fledged partners of GÉANT following the project’s end. Throughout this final phase, GÉANT continued to support the Ukrainian NREN (URAN) through connectivity and cloud services, ensuring data safety and resilience.
GÉANT also strengthened its global footprint through several major connectivity initiatives:
2025 reflected a year of solid financial delivery and increasing maturity in how GÉANT manages its resources. Income exceeded budget, driven by strong execution across our project portfolio, while overall cost discipline remained in place. This resulted in a positive outcome, despite a dynamic funding and delivery environment.
At the same time, our financial position continues to reflect the nature of our operating model: significant pre-financing flows, long-term infrastructure commitments, and a high dependency on external funding. These dynamics require careful liquidity management and continued focus on financial resilience.
Looking ahead, changes in European funding models and the relevance of programmes such as EuroHPC will further shape our financial landscape. Over the past year, we have strengthened our finance function and governance foundations to ensure we are well positioned to support this transition, maintaining stability while enabling GÉANT to deliver on its strategic ambitions.
Total income was €4,584k above budget. This is primarily driven by higher-than-planned project spend, while remaining within the overall project budget, in AfricaConnect3 as well an additional €1,045k income from EOSC Future due to surplus funds available for overhead recovery.
EC grant funding remained GÉANT’s main source of funding, representing 63% of total income.
Project expenditure was €2,841k above budget, mainly due to additional costs incurred during the extended AfricaConnect3 project. This was partially offset by lower spend arising from delays in connectivity delivery and capital expenditure within GN5-2.
Other expenditure was €798k below budget, mainly due to later-than-planned recruitment.
The increase in tangible fixed assets reflects the work completed on the Nomios equipment refresh within GN5-2. This follows the earlier transmission equipment refresh funded under GN4-3N (2019–2023).
Prepayments increased as expected due to additional investment in long-term connectivity, most notably the 15-year Copenhagen–New York link under GN5-IC1. Further investment is planned in 2026.
Short-term liabilities reflect the timing within GN5-2: pre-financing has been received but has not yet been fully spent. This position is also reflected in the cash balances held at year end.
GÉANT’s strategic risk profile reflects its role as a provider of critical digital infrastructure and a delivery partner for major EU-funded programmes. This brings a combination of strategic, financial, operational and compliance risks that require active oversight.
The Board sets the Association’s overall approach to risk, including risk appetite, and remains responsible for the system of internal control and reviewing its effectiveness. The Audit and Risk Advisory Committee (ARAC)—made up of Board members and independent subject matter experts—supports the Board by overseeing risk and internal control across the Association and reporting directly to the Board.
The Association operates a Risk Management Framework that involves staff at all levels. Risk registers are reviewed regularly by the executive team, helping the Association to identify, assess and manage risks in a consistent way.
The principal strategic risks are summarised below.
GÉANT remains committed to reducing its greenhouse gas emissions as much as possible by 2035, making accurate CO₂ reporting an essential and ongoing requirement.
Published in August, GÉANT’s 2024 CO₂ report provided its second full assessment of greenhouse gas emissions as the organisation works toward major reductions by 2035. Improved data collection – especially through a new travel booking system – effectively made 2024 the new baseline year, with total emissions reaching 691.3 t CO₂e across Scope 2 and Scope 3.
Scope 2 emissions, which stem from purchased electricity and gas for offices and network infrastructure, rose slightly due to parallel operation of old and new equipment during the 2024–2025 infrastructure upgrade. Although energy use is expected to decrease once older equipment is decommissioned, the report notes that network design means energy consumption will not fluctuate with traffic levels.
Significant further reductions in infrastructure energy use are unlikely without changes by host-site energy providers.
Scope 3 emissions continue to be driven mainly by business travel, with commuting and home-working energy use also significant. The report aims not only to document emissions but to guide future reduction strategies, with further detailed analysis needed to identify the most effective actions.
In 2025, GÉANT’s Learning & Development (GLAD) function continued to strengthen leadership capability across the organisation by delivering its core Management & Leadership Development Programme (MLDP) to a further 14 leaders. This course explored the role of the Team Lead at GÉANT and used psychometric profiling to deepen their understanding of communication styles, improve collaboration, and build stronger working relationships. The programme is designed to help leaders connect across streams, enhance their leadership skills, develop a shared language around leadership theory, and create space for meaningful knowledge‑sharing.
A total of 54 leaders—including line managers and virtual project team leads—have now completed the core MLDP. Participants engage with modules such as “The Role of the Team Lead at GÉANT”, “You as a Leader”, “People Skills”, and “Performance and Development”, building a consistent foundation for leadership across the organisation. To further support GÉANT’s strategic transformation, GLAD also delivered eight MLDP Plus workshops for 40 leaders, focusing on “Leadership in Times of Change” and “Strategic Thinking and Execution”, ensuring leaders are equipped to guide their teams through ongoing organisational evolution.
In 2025, GÉANT welcomed 20 new joiners (11 female, 9 male) – a net increase of 8 staff – which has positively influenced our gender split (now 40% female) and our age demographic: in the past three years the age demographic has shifted significantly with – for example – 63 staff below the age of 40 compared to 28 in 2022. These positive changes are a result of conscious efforts to recruit younger generations into the world of research and education networking.In parallel, 60 role changes were made for existing staff throughout the year, mostly as a result of strategic realignment but – in conjunction with our GLAD initiatives – all aimed at providing opportunities and career pathways for staff.
| Statement of Income and Expenditure | ||||
| 2025 | 2025 | 2024 | ||
| €000 | €000 | €000 | ||
| Actual | Budget | Actual | ||
| Income | ||||
| GÉANT project | 39,760 | 41,405 | 37,790 | |
| International projects | 9,975 | 4,138 | 5,200 | |
| Membership fees | 5,225 | 4,763 | 2,305 | |
| Other income | 2,658 | 2,632 | 3,565 | |
| Interest received | 541 | 636 | 984 | |
| 58,159 | 53,574 | 49,844 | ||
| Project expenditure | 31,858 | 29,017 | 26,020 | |
| Gross operating result | 26,301 | 24,557 | 23,824 | |
| Other expenditure | ||||
| Personnel costs | 17,989 | 18,771 | 16,432 | |
| Development and innovation cost | 274 | 300 | 314 | |
| Other administrative costs | 6,055 | 6,011 | 5,705 | |
| Depreciation | 309 | 450 | 354 | |
| Financial expenses | 142 | 35 | 23 | |
| Total other expenditure | 24,769 | 25,567 | 22,828 | |
| Result from income and expenditure | 1,532 | (1,010) | 996 | |
| Taxation (receivable)/chargeable | 23 | 19 | 205 | |
| Result | 1,509 | (1,029) | 791 | |
2025 was a year defined by momentum, resilience, and the strength of our community and it was my first full year as CEO of the GÉANT Association. It was a great pleasure to get to know the community and to experience firsthand what we are capable of achieving together.
From the very start, we demonstrated what is possible when expertise, infrastructure, and collaboration come together with purpose.
One of the year’s earliest breakthroughs—our practical Quantum Key Distribution demonstration across 254 km of standard telecom fibre—showcased how our community can turn emerging technologies into real-world capability, using the networks we already operate and trust.
As the year progressed, we reinforced our commitment to security and reliability by achieving ISO 27001 certification. In a Europe where cross border digital collaboration is growing rapidly, this milestone underscored our dedication to transparency, maturity, and best practice in information security.
We then saw the GÉANT community gather in record numbers, with more than 900 participants from 72 countries joining us for our largest TNC to date. The diversity, curiosity, and energy on display reminded us why this community is so unique—and why it continues to inspire.
Mid‑year, our backbone restructuring programme, GN4‑3N (2019-2023), was nominated for a European Digital Connectivity Award, reflecting the engineering excellence and forward-looking design that underpin our work. Later, we brought GÉANT’s and our members’ voice to Brussels for our first multi‑stakeholder policy conference with 65 high-level representatives of the European NREN community and officials of six different Directorate Generals of the European Commission coming together. Despite national disruptions, our community showed up, engaged deeply, and ensured that research and education networking remained firmly on the policy agenda also in Brussels. Well done, all!
October was also the month we opened a one-person office in Brussels to help focus on the MFF negotiations but also being the eyes and ears of the GÉANT Association. We have already gotten positive feedback from our stakeholders in Brussels on the move.
Toward the end of the year, our Fibre Sensing Task in GN5‑2 delivered another powerful demonstration of what our infrastructure can enable. Using Distributed Acoustic Sensing on a live production fibre, the team showed how research networks can serve as scientific instruments—detecting everything from road traffic to low‑flying aircraft—once again expanding our understanding of what is possible.
Throughout this period, we continued our internal restructuring and advanced the development of a new association strategy—work that ensures GÉANT remains agile, ambitious, and equipped for the opportunities ahead.
But progress this year was not only strategic or technological—it was also deeply human. The launch of the Humanitarian Support Group for NRENs stands as a powerful reflection of our community’s values. Inspired by the extraordinary support offered to URAN, the Ukrainian NREN, this new structure ensures that solidarity can be mobilised quickly and effectively when any NREN faces crisis or disruption. It reinforces what many of us know instinctively: the strength of GÉANT lies not only in its physical networks but in its human networks too.
Looking back on 2025, one thing is undeniable: our work matters, our impact is growing, and our community—collaborative, resilient, and committed—continues to deliver for Europe and for global research and education. I am looking forward to continuing the excellent work we are doing together in 2026 and to finalise our strategy for 2026-2030.
