The Works of DANTE - Issue 3

SEEREN2 - the Sequel

A proposal for the successor project to SEEREN (South Eastern European Research and Education Network) has been submitted to the European Commission for consideration. The original SEEREN project ended in December, at which point connectivity contracts were taken over by GÉANT, to ensure continued provision of connectivity in the region.

As with its predecessor project, SEEREN2 will be lead by GRNET, the Greek national research and education network, and involves the active participation of eight organisations representing the NRENs of Albania, Bosnia-Herzegovina, Bulgaria, the Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia, Greece, Hungary, Romania and Serbia-Montenegro. Of the eight NRENs, four are connected to GÉANT2 (Greece, Hungary, Romania and Bulgaria); four are not, and consequently will be the main beneficiaries of SEEREN2. The consortium is complemented with the vast experience of the pan-European research and education networking bodies DANTE and TERENA.

The aim of SEEREN2 is to further the benefits achieved by SEEREN in an attempt to ease the “digital divide” that still separates most of the southeast European countries from the rest of the continent. Jorge Andres Sanchez Papaspiliou, the SEEREN Project Manager, said, “With respect to its predecessor (SEEREN), the infrastructure will be substantially enhanced in its performance, but more significantly will add a new key item to its fundamental characteristic - the consolidation of the networking and Grid infrastructures into an eInfrastructure for southeast Europe, fully integrated with the pan-European efforts (GÉANT2, EGEE, SEE-GRID etc). The latter will be achieved with the support of services and tools empowering the end-user (researchers, professors, students, etc), responding to dynamic bandwidth requirements, and guaranteed and seamless service quality. In this trajectory, SEEREN2 will continue to assist the incubating and existing NRENs in southeast Europe to fully establish themselves, and to integrate with related European-wide organisations and initiatives (TERENA, CEENet, e-IRG, EUGridPMA, etc) and eventually become full members of the GÉANT2 community by the end of the project.”

“The ultimate goal is to consolidate the network and services into the pan-European eInfrastructure and the end-users into the European Research Area.“

More information on SEEREN and its successor can be found at www.seeren.org.