Update on Community Award

Charlie gave an update on how the GÉANT Community Award will be considered.

Michel, Dawn, and Charlie have finalised a standardised way of judging applications.
The awarding panel will consist of the GCC, the GÉANT CEO, and the Chair of the Board.
Calls for nominations will open soon.
It is intended that there will be at least 1 week for the panel to consider the nominations.

GCP Workshop Agenda

Charlie enumerated the existing things intended to be included on the agenda for the GCP workshop in March:

Liaison and SIG meet-up
Communication -> maybe shooting some footage for the SIG promotional videos
Updates/plans from each SIG
Time to mingle between SIGs and find overlapping topics/interests
Updates from the GCC side: innovation project, community hub, humanitarian aid group, community award
Event logistics
Update on DANCE initiative

Charlie invited a discussion of further ideas.

Dawn Reminded the group that the morning of Day 1 will be a GCC meeting to consider the Community Hub promosals

Michel Suggestion to ask SIGs to describe their biggest discussing or talking points from the last year, and the biggest challenge they see for the upcoming year. Potentially focus on NREN level challenges, but could be Technology based, Process based, or something else. We should expect overlapping external challenges from the SIGs.

How can we get SIGs to interact with each other?

Ariela We already have the thematic areas, is it worth matching up SIGs across different areas to improve understanding and foster connections? We could consider asking the coordinators to do this.

Michel Possible question to pose: “How could other SIGs support you?”

Dawn We could consider extra representation from some SIGs if that’s useful. For example inviting more members of SIG-MARCOMMS as they could provide much support for many other SIGs.

Charlie How can we support the useful meeting up of the GCC liaison person with their assigned SIGs? Possibly by thematic areas but there might not be enough overlap to make that practical.

Ariela Suggestion for “Speed dating” between SIGs to provoke relationship building. This can be quite hard to engineer but should be useful!

Charlie Noted three moments to connect with others:
- GCC + SIG (probably ½ hour)
- SIG Thematic Groups
- SIG/SIG speed dating

Then feed back on challenges or synergies identified, both internal and external.

Ariela Suggest using Mentimeter to capture feedback

Michel Consider also inviting each SIG to provide 2 minute feedback about this too?

NORDUnet hosted community day

An event planned for September 2026 at the NORDUnet offices in Copenhagen for SIG chairs and coordinators.

Dawn Question to pose to SIGs: “What was your top presentation in the last year, and why?”

We could crowd-source ideas for this agenda from the SIGs

Erik Offered to ask some representatives from the Nordic NRENs to attend to provide some context to SIG attendees

Charlie We should create a small programme committee to create the agenda

TNC Community Hub

Conversation drifted onto discussing how SIGs could raise awareness at TNC:

Michel Suggested 30 second lightning talks from each SIG to spotlight what their SIG is about

Ariela Should we self-submit a proposal to host these Lightning Talks within the TNC Community Hub?

Charlie That is probably overthinking it – we control the programme for the Community Hub so it’s up to us whether or not to include is in the programme.

SIG liaison

For the most part, little or no communication has taken place. Of note:

Ariela noted that the chair of SIG-RED has changed so is trying to make contact with the new one and is hoping to meet the chair of SIG-MARCOMMS next week
Erik is planning to introduce the SIG-DigitalHealth team to the danish Health Ministry to see if they can work together
Erik and Michel have an email ready to go with the SIG-CnaaS chair
Charlie joined the SIG-ISM steering committee where they discussed overlapping meetings with other SIGs but struggled to find suitable overlaps
Michel is meeting with SIG-CISS tomorrow
Ivana has made contact with SIG-NGN but has been referred elsewhere due to change of members

DANCE

Ariela is trying to organise a time to discuss the DANCE initiative and will circulate a Doodle shortly.