Document code: GN-20-259191c
Owner: Chief Community Relations Officer
Authors: GÉANT Community Committee members: Valter Nordh, Claudio Allocchio, Klaas Wierenga, Branka Vuk, János Mohácsi, Guido Aben, Anna Wilson, Victoriano Giralt, David Groep, Sabine Jaume, Gyöngyi Horváth (GÉANT Association) and Task Force and Special Interest Group coordinators
Classification: Public
1. Introduction
Collaboration between experts in different geographic locations and disciplines is crucial to the GÉANT community. The GÉANT Community Programme (GCP) helps GÉANT, National Research and Education Networks (NRENs), other research and education bodies and members of the community to collaborate and share experiences.
This document outlines the strategic framework governing the activities of the GCP. It presents an overview of the Programme, its vision, goal, mission and objectives (Section 2), describes the work of the GÉANT Community Committee (GCC) (Section 3), and summarises its portfolio of Task Forces (TFs), Special Interest Groups (SIGs), workshops and collaborative projects and services, including the thematic areas supported (Section 4).
The strategy will be reviewed four years from the date of approval and issue, or sooner if circumstances require.
2. The GÉANT Community Programme
2.1 Vision
The vision the GCP aspires to realise is:
A connected, collaborative and harmonised research and education networking community.
Its goal is to be the primary forum for enabling and fostering collaboration and harmonisation in the R&E networking community, furthering development and progress in Internet technology, infrastructure, R&E services, digital transformation and activities, and of the research and education community itself.
2.2 Mission
The mission of the GCP, which will enable it to achieve that goal, is to: Provide optimal conditions for the R&E networking community to collaborate both face-to-face and virtually.This involves creating mechanisms to enable participation and inclusion, delivering a roadmap identifying topics and trends of strategic importance (including input from the community) and providing guidance to GÉANT and the community.
2.3 Objectives and Actions
The specific objectives by which the GCP fulfils its mission are:
- Identify and share areas and trends benefiting NRENs and the wider R&E community.
- Manage the lifecycle of groups and activities.
- Connect people to the right human network.
- Support methods of eliminating gaps within the R&E community.
- Facilitate group collaborations.
- Raise awareness about the GCP.
- Facilitate knowledge transfer.
Each of these is described in more detail below, outlining the actions the GCC and community are taking or will take in order to realise each objective. Results and achievements of the work is oversight and assessed regularly to support the fulfilment and continuous progress of strategy. A more detailed action plan will be defined as a next step.
- Identify and share areas and trends benefiting NRENs and the wider R&E community.
- Manage the lifecycle of groups and activities.
- Connect people to the right human network.
- Support methods of eliminating gaps within the R&E community.
- Facilitate group collaborations.
- Raise awareness about the GCP.
- Knowledge transfer.
3. GÉANT Community Committee
- Provide help, to NRENs that request it, with procuring ICT equipment and facilities for students, lecturers and scientists by, for example, sharing ideas, best practices, advising on harmonising procedures or technology selection, or jointly tackling an issue.
- Assist GÉANT in matters related to community‐driven collaborative initiatives.
4. GÉANT Community Programme Portfolio
4.1 Task Forces
TFs are fixed‐term, typically short‐lived community‐based collaboration activities, undertaken largely by volunteers who work together on specific tasks to produce tangible deliverables. Formal processes are in place for establishing, running and dissolving a TF, together with standard terms of reference that determine aspects such as the role of the chair and secretary, meeting frequency, deliverables, length of mandate and mailing list. (Exceptions to the “short-lived” characteristic include the Task Force on Computer Security Incident Response Teams (TF-CSIRT).)4.2 Special Interest Groups
SIGs are similar constructs to TFs, in that they are also community‐based and largely volunteering activities, but focus on community building, best practice dissemination and knowledge exchange rather than on tasks and deliverables. Like TFs their lifecycle is governed by formal processes and standard terms of reference. SIGs are normally of longer duration than TFs, and are led by a Steering Committee rather than a chair.4.3 Workshops and Trainings
One‐off or series of community‐based workshops, (un)conferences or Birds of a Feather sessions (BoFs) may be organised around a specific topic of interest. Workshops may lead to recommendations for establishing further, follow‐up activities. These may be captured in a workshop (or series of workshops) closing report.4.4 Collaborative Projects
The GCP provides a framework for a broad range of collaboration activities of interest to GÉANT. These can be small or large collaborative projects or specific components of such projects initiated by members or individuals from the community and administered/commissioned by the GÉANT Association. GÉANT provides support to a variety of collaborative projects that are important to the community in order to ensure that they have the necessary coordinators and infrastructure to function well. In essence, the support provided is very similar to that for a TF or SIG – normally in the form of a professional secretariat for the project – but these projects are typically self-sustained by the community and funding (if any) is not from the EC. Current projects supported include REFEDS, WISE, GLIF and the GeGC. Support for these projects includes some or all of the following functions:- Coordinator role.
- Meeting support (both virtual and face to face).
- Invoicing (REFEDS and GLIF).
- Infrastructure support (wiki, website, mailing lists, hosting, VC).
4.5 Collaborative Services
Through its TFs, SIGs and collaborative projects, the GCP can identify activities within the supported thematic areas that are of a service nature and that benefit the community as a whole. GÉANT provides support to the Community Programme to confirm the viability of such services and support their incubation, with the intent to make such services self-sustaining. The services should be inclusive, and intended to be open and accessible to all participants in the community at large. The Community Programme, together with the materially contributing stakeholders of the service, will advise on the strategic direction and development of the services so created.4.5.1 GÉANT Community Innovation and Service/Product Lifecycle
This section describes the GÉANT Community Programme’s process for developing innovation from idea to project to service. The four main stages of innovation are usually identified as:- Ideation – Basic research and conception.
- Project Selection – The decision to develop an idea further (invest people, time and money).
- Product Development – Building the product or service.
- Operationalisation – Bringing the product or service to market and adapting it to customer demands.
4.5.1.1 GCC Role
There are two areas of service/product development in the GÉANT community to which the GCC can significantly contribute: systematic ideation and also a phase-out process (decision that a service has expired). In addition to the processes already in place, the GCC will take a strategic role in the idea-gathering and coordination process by:- Annual analysis of technological trends and innovations with particular relevance to the GÉANT community, producing white papers and/or position papers.
- Providing clear channels to systematically gather innovation ideas within TFs, SIGs and NRENs. The GCC is also considering the idea of an electronic “idea submission box” for gathering individual ideas.
- Providing a screening and filtering process for ideas gathered, as well as coordinating TFs and SIGs in selecting and further developing ideas.
4.6 Thematic Areas Currently Supported
Thematic areas are formed and continuously evolve from the needs of the GÉANT community. The areas currently supported (as at April 2020) are as follows.The Thematic Areas that are currently supported by the Community Programme are listed here.References
Glossary
BoF Birds of a Feather
GCC GÉANT Community Committee
GeGC Global eduroam Governance Committee
GLIF Global Lambda Integrated Facility
GPPC GÉANT Programme Planning Committee
NREN National Research and Education Network
NPAPW Network Performing Arts Production Workshop
OC Oversight Committee
PAIR Project Annual Internal Review
PMO Project Management Office
R&E Research and Education
REFEDS Research and Education Federations
SIG Special Interest Group
SIG-CISS SIG on Cloudy Interoperable Software Stacks
SIG-ISM SIG on Information Security Management
SIG-Marcomms SIG on Marketing Communications
SIG-MSP SIG on Management of Service Portfolios
SIG-Multimedia SIG on Multimedia Applications
SIG-NGN SIG on Next-Generation Networking
SIG-NOC SIG on Network Operations Centres
SIG-PMV SIG on Performance Monitoring and Verification
SIG-TNE SIG on Transnational Education
TF Task Force
TF-CSIRT TF on Computer Security Incident Response Teams
TF-DPR TF on Data Protection Regulation
TF-EDU TF on Educational Services and Activities
TF-RED TF on Research Engagement Development
VUCA Volatile, Uncertain, Complex and Ambiguous
WISE Wise Information Security for Collaborating e-Infrastructures