Gigabit European Academic Network

GÉANT is proud of the contribution it makes to GEO. Together with its partner research and education networks; ASREN, RedCLARA and WACREN, GÉANT provides the infrastructure which underpins the internet, as well as the services to help researchers collaborate with their peers, wherever they are in the world, including GEO end-users.

At the 16thGEOplenary, GÉANT announced that it was working with our Latin American partners, RedCLARA, to acquire dedicated capacity on a new fibre optic cable between Europe and Latin America to support the distribution of research and education, and Copernicus data. GÉANT is proud to confirm that we have now delivered on that statement. Having worked with industry to establish the first direct telecoms cable between Europe and Latin America, researchers from universities and institutes on both sides of the Atlantic can now share access to digital resources with citizen scientists and industry experts.  Tangible projects such as BELLA, accelerate the possibilities for collaboration for the benefit of the global scientific and education communities.

GÉANT continues to support GEO through the work it performs in the community.  We are proud to be able to welcome one of our partners, WACREN, the regional Research and education network for West and Central Africa to the GEO community.  And through the Katowice declaration signed between the GEO participating members: GÉANT, ASREN and RedCLARA earlier this year, we as a group we are asserting our commitment to UN SDG realisation, climate action monitoring and assist in disaster and emergency response, through the context of GEO.  Infrastructures such as the GÉANT network, ASREN, RedCLARA, WACREN, and others, serve not just as platforms to be built upon to foster growth and access to earth observation data.  The networks also serve as a global community which is here to support the activities of the GEO community.  Our fibre optic networks laying at the bottom of the oceans are also a potential source of in situ earth observation data.  New technologies which we are implementing can soon turn our networks from a data sharing infrastructure, into a data generating infrastructure as well. GÉANT will be exploring technologies which can contribute further to the aims and ambitions of the GEO community, and are willing and ready to collaborate with any GEO partners.

With our African partners, via the EC funded AfricaConnect3project,and our Latin American partners, the specialist collaboration of the NRENs with the GEO community, will seek to provide a supporting digital infrastructure to ensure the goals that the GEO community identify can be achieved. The collaboration between the research and education community and GEO, we believe, demonstrates the mutual benefits of collaboration, fostering growth and capacity development.

We are excited for this future, and the possibilities resulting from being a part of the work that the GEO performs.

About GÉANT

GÉANT is the collaboration of European National Research and Education Networks or NRENs. It sits at the heart of a global infrastructure that represents over 40 European NRENs, with a communications infrastructure connecting over 100 countries and regions. Alongside it’s high bandwidth, high speed and highly resilient pan-European backbone, GÉANT has developed many services to support science and research, such as the global secure Wi-Fi service, eduroam. Or the global single-sign on solution for research institutions, eduGAIN.