GÉANT

The GÉANT Association welcomes the European Commission initiative to revise EU Public Procurement rules. Our full Consultation Response is in the attached file. The EU Public Procurement directive should be updated to ensure effective, proportionate, and efficient procurement processes and assume more mature and professional EU contracting authorities who can guarantee legal procurement as a profession and apply…

GÉANT welcomes the European Commissions initiative on the 28th regime for an EU corporate legal framework as a step towards reducing legal fragmentation and simplifying cross-border operations within the Single Market.

GÉANT supports the Right to Stay Strategy initiative. At GÉANT we are committed to help link all regions of Europe through our pan-European network and connections with the national research and education networks (NRENs). Research and education ecosystems play a fundamental role in driving innovation and competitiveness in remote, rural and border regions; advanced connectivity is a prerequisite to achieve this.

The GÉANT Association welcomes the European Commission initiative to set out a strategic approach to the open-source sector. A strengthened EU open-source sector can contribute significantly to Europes technological sovereignty and the cybersecurity agenda, and we call for the support of the European Union to create the framework conditions for this.

GÉANT, the pan-European research and education network organisation working with its 43 National Research and Education Network (NREN) members, welcomes the European Commission's call for evidence on Quality Education for All: A 2040 Roadmap.

We see that the Data Governance Act is attempting to achieve two main aims. Firstly, to enable a data market, where companies can effectively ‘trade’ data, and secondly, to enlarge the pool of data available in Europe for R&D and innovation purposes. Both are integral for the realisation of the European Data Lake and the nine Common Data Spaces.

The reason to enable CDS is to enlarge the pool of available information for R&E. As the GÉANT being an R&E data transporter, it is important to contribute to the inception IA with some considerations: Work out the arrangement on how to connect data from public and corporate sources to the R&E community. When developing standards, take into account existing efforts in the research community.

Our feedback is attached. GÉANT is a fundamental element of Europes e-infrastructure, delivering the pan-European GÉANT network for scientific excellence, research, education and innovation. Through its integrated catalogue of connectivity, collaboration and identity services, GÉANT provides users with highly reliable, unconstrained access to computing, analysis, storage, applications and other resources, to ensure…

The draft guidance on the CRA application is a welcome and important implementation step. It addresses several core issues that are highly relevant to the Research & Education sector, including scope, placing on the market, complex systems, free and open-source software, support periods, substantial modification, cybersecurity risk assessment, and remote data processing.

GÉANT welcomes the European Commissions call for evidence on the application of the Do No Significant harm (DNSH) principle under the 2028-2034 MFF. Based on our experience in applying the DNSH principle within a coordination and support context, we propose the following seven recommendations for the DNSH guidance for the 2028-2034 MFF: (1) Provide tailored DNSH guidance for low-impact projects: Develop specific…

The GÉANT Association welcomes the European Commission initiative for a Quantum Act as announced in the Competitiveness Compass and the Quantum Europe Strategy. The pan-European GÉANT Association and its national members (the National Research and Education Networks, NRENs) are already involved in both quantum computing and simulators (EuroHPC), quantum communication, including key distribution (EuroQCI).

The GÉANT Association welcomes the European Commission initiative to advance the European Research Area (ERA) through the ERA Act. As the provider of Europes high-capacity trusted digital infrastructure for research and education, GÉANT, together with National Research and Education Networks (NRENs), is deeply invested in building the fifth freedom for the free movement of researchers, scientific knowledge, and…

GÉANT supports the proposal for a combined EU Ocean and Water Research and Innovation Strategy. Specifically, we hope to see the Strategy acknowledge digital research infrastructure as a vital enabler of Europes strategic priorities and, in line with a revised MSPD, create a legal basis for ocean observation governance.

GÉANT fully supports this initiative, as it is quite a strong requirement to make significant high-value datasets available, which will promote reuse significantly. The guidelines proposed for implementing each element (e.g. CC-O or CC-BY licence, APIs etc) are also very appropriate but we do miss any reference to persistent identifiers. Overall, the ambition is impressive.

GÉANT supports the proposal for a combined EU Ocean and Water Research and Innovation Strategy. Specifically, we hope to see the Strategy acknowledge digital research infrastructure as a vital enabler of Europes strategic priorities and, in line with a revised MSPD, create a legal basis for ocean observation governance.

The GÉANT Association welcomes the European Commission initiative to review the Digital Decade targets and objectives to account for the technological, economic, and societal developments since the programmes adoption in 2022. In the attached document we outline the need for public digital infrastructures and sufficient Wi-Fi capacity to ensure access to digital opportunities.

GÉANT is a Membership Association, legally headquartered in the Netherlands as a Dutch Association or Vereniging. We have 38 Members and 1 Representative Member. There is one representative per EU Member State plus representatives of States in wider Europe. The association is co-funded by the Membership and the European Commission via project funding.

Whilst the GÉANT Association as an organisation is not involved in radio spectrum specifically, but instead spectrum fibre, a number of its National Research and Education Network (NREN) Membership do operate radio linkages. As such, GÉANT therefore supports the initiative if it aims to ensure that EU Member States respect the principle of unity in external negotiations when EU action is required.