Meet the neighbours: Extending the geographic region of Europe

 

TNC 2009 Birds of a Feather Session on 9 June 2009, 19:00-20:30

 Despite the good weather and the late hour, numerous delegates at the TNC2009 in Malaga followed the invitation of the EUMEDCONNECT2 and BSI projects to attend a Birds of a Feather session intended to explore practical opportunities for collaboration between NRENs and users in Europe and neighbouring countries.

 DANTE's David West opened the session with an overview of global connectivity, outlining current and prospective initiatives that build on establishing a regional network and interconnecting it to GÉANT. In particular, he drew on the experience of the EUMEDCONNECT2 project in the Mediterranean area. Helga Spitaler, Regional Marketing Officer at DANTE, subsequently stressed the importance of promotional activities to raise awareness among the stakeholders on why R&E networks should be used and funded and outlined an application-based marketing approach which consists in describing the benefits of the networks in the context of R&E projects with high societal impact and particular relevance to the region of interest.  A video on the ITHANET project which promotes Euro-Mediterranean research into thalassaemia was shown to illustrate this approach (film premiere!)

Murat Soysal Murat Soysal, Project Coordinator of the Black Sea Interconnection (BSI) project, outlined the process that led the South Caucasian countries to have their satellite-based SILK connection successfully replaced by a terrestrial fibre optic connection to GÉANT.  

Kostas Glinos from the European Commission provided an overview of available financial  instruments for 2009-2013 to further develop interregional collaborations. He remarked that further EC funding for regional e-infrastructure, particularly in the Mediterraneran, would need to make a strong case showing the benefits of the programme and the commitment of the partners.

Panellists: Yousef Torman (JuNET), Ramaz Kvatadze (GRENA), Michal Przybylski (CEENet), Kostas Glinos (EC), Yannis Mitsos (GRNET), Alberto Perez (Red.es), Bjorn Pehrson (FEAST) The session closed with a panel discussion drawn on EU NRENs and representatives from existing and emerging regional programmes and was chaired by Kostas Glinos. The panellists agreed that there were opportunities to co-operate and share experiences between programmes such as EUMEDCONNECT2, BSI and FEAST as well as to help new countries, such as Belarus. They also outlined a number of examples of applications using or planning to use the network such as the Opera Abierta initiative where networks contribute to opera education and the Ithanet project featured in the video.

Available presentation slides can be downloaded from the agenda below.

Agenda

19:00	Connecting north and south and east and west: GÉANT2 at the heart of global research and education networking  David West, EUMEDCONNECT2 Project Manager, DANTE
19:10	The Black Sea Interconnection - One small step for GÉANT, one giant leap for the Black Sea Region Murat Soysal, BSI Project Coordinator
19:25	Getting the message across: promoting EUMEDCONNECT2 Helga Spitaler, Regional Marketing Officer, DANTE
19:30	Overview of EC Instruments 2009-2013 open to participation from neighbouring countries Kostas Glinos, Head of Unit F3 'GÉANT & e-Infrastructure', DG INFSO, European Commission
19:45	Panel Discussion Fostering R&E collaborations between Europe and its neighbours in the south and in the east: challenges and opportunities In this session representatives of NRENs in the southern Mediterranean and in the Caucasus will take stock of the current level of collaboration and explore ways of increasing it in conjunction with the European counterparts. Chair: Kostas Glinos, Head of Unit F3 'GÉANT & e-Infrastructure', DG INFSO, European Commission Panellists: Yousef Torman, JUNET, Jordan Ramaz Kvatadze, GRENA, Georgia Michal Przybylski, CEENet Yannis Mitsos, GRNET, Greece Alberto Perez, Red.es, Spain Bjorn Pehrson, FEAST
20:30	Wrap-up and close