These are the pages of the working group for NRENs with the objective of supporting the infrastructure development for an interoperable digital education in Europe. Currently, 13 NRENs feel both an obligation and an opportunity to contribute as NRENs to a more strategic and cohesive approach in developing services to support student mobility: 5 NRENs (CARNET, CSC, Jisc, SIKT, SURF) have committed to actively collaborate to support the European education landscape on their own expenses and 8 NRENs (DeiC, GARR, HEAnet, PSNC, RedIRIS, RESTENA, SUNET, SWITCH), endorse the effort but currently lack the resources to participate actively. DG Education and Culture, unit Digital Education, invited NRENs4Education to present concrete plans and needs to support the European education landscape.

Long term vision

European Education Landscape

• Rise of European student mobility (Erasmus (400.000 student x year), European Universities (64, 560 universities, 35 countries), joint degrees, etc), new initiatives: Competitiveness Compass, Union of Skills (15 B)
• Growing need for coherent IT-support applicable in different contexts, but problem owners are forced into being problem solvers
• Investments in many point solutions without a scaling mechanism
• Limited steering options for EC because of autonomy of education
• Fragmented initiatives for data mobility without coordination to organize standardisation and interoperability

Ambition

• A strong and well-trained European workforce
• Economic growth & innovation in Europe
• Accelerating the digital & green transition
• Social inclusion & equal opportunities
• Strategic autonomy & European sovereignty

Existing building blocks for change

• Interoperability framework European Digital Education Hub
• European Learning Model European Commission
• EC funded projects, ESCI II, QualityLink, DC4EU, etc
• FOREU4ALL (collaboration of European Universities)
• EUNIS Enterprise Architecture Special Interest Group
• Work of NRENs and GÉANT (EduGAIN, MyAcademicID)

Added value of NRENs

• Trusted partners of universities, infrastructure providers, and policy makers
• Part of the education community, work hand-in-hand with universities at national level
• NRENs have joined forces within GÉANT
• Proven providers of successful, large-scale digital services (network, eduroam, eduGAIN, MyAcademicID), showcasing the ability to build secure and interoperable scalable solutions, driver for digital transformation
• Working towards coherent infrastructure for members