The Vietsch Foundation’s Medal of Honour

The Vietsch Foundation was created through the last will and testament of the late Willem Karel Vietsch (1952-2014), Secretary General of TERENA for over 15 years.

GÉANT collaborates with the Vietsch Foundation with regards to both the Innovation Programme (where strong proposals that are outside the scope of the Innovation Programme can be shared with the Foundation for consideration) and the Community Award (to avoid overlap with the Medal of Honour).

About the Vietsch Foundation

The mission of the Vietsch Foundation is to promote research and development of advanced Internet technology for scientific research and higher education.

The Vietsch Foundation fulfils its goals in two ways:

  • It funds specific research and development projects that demonstrate potential value to progress European and global research and education networking.
  • Each year it awards a medal of honour to people who contributed to the development of a service, technology or approach that will be of lasting value to the research and education networking community and its users.

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Medal of Honour

The Vietsch Foundation awards a Medal of Honour on an annual basis to honour people whose initiatives led to a lasting organisational set-up or a service that is of great value to the research and education community.

Eligible are demonstrable, sustainable achievements in the set-up of a new organisation or service that help accelerating innovation in support of science research and higher education. The Medal can be awarded to the innovators as well as to those who have built on that innovation and made it sustainable. In case of proven collaboration, the Medal can be assigned also to different individuals involved in the process.

To nominate someone please send an e-mail explaining the reasons for your submission to nominations@vietsch-foundation.org.

The winner is announced at TNC, GÉANT's flagship conference. .

2023 Winner

Arjan Xhelaj, RASH

Arjan Xhelaj, Director General of RASH, is the recipient of the 2023 Medal of Honour of the Vietsch Foundation. “Arjan Xhelaj has been responsible for establishing the RASH academic network from scratch and developing it through a decade of successful achievements to a fully functional organisation, serving the academic network and users of Albania and representing the Albanian research and education community in international fora and projects.” said Valentino Cavalli, Chair of the Board of Trustees of the Vietsch Foundation, explaining the rationale for the choice.

About Arjan

Arjan is the founder, and currently Director General and Chairman of the Governance Board of RASH, the Academic Network of Albania. He is an experienced institutional leader with a proven track record of working in government, public administration, industry, and International Relations. The Researcher and Innovator has strong experience in the European Commission as a Member of various governing and advisory Boards. He has studied Engineering in Applied Physics and Information Technology and worked as PhD researcher in Biophysics at Frankfurt am Main University, Germany.

List of Medal of Honour recipients

You can find all the Vietsch Medal of Honour recipients here.
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