TNC25 Opening Plenary

Wisdom and Strategy

While change is constant and informed change is vital, we cannot look to the future without understanding our past and our present. In this session we will delve into three core subjects for NRENs: ITSM, Network Architecture and Strategic Design. Our speakers from Switch, Jisc and Sikt will share their wisdom & experience and explain how it has helped their present and future, and how it can help you too!

A Day in the Life of an NREN: Reflections, challenges, and possibilities

What is a day in the life of an NREN like? Do we all share the same daily grind? Are differences keeping us apart or are we brighter together? In this session, 3 NRENs reveal their daily reality. They reflect on organisational culture, unravel the challenges ahead for NREN collaboration and question if the world needs more NRENs at all.

Working As One

NRENs are built on the power of collaboration, and true impact comes when we align technical expertise with shared purpose, global cooperation, and collective action. This session highlights three unique ways NRENs are working as one to deliver more than the sum of their parts. We’ll see how AARNet and Cybera leverage time zones for seamless security operations, how SURF’s shared vision strengthens strategy and community, and how 39 NRENs simplify cloud adoption through OCRE2024. Join us to see collaboration at scale in action!

Innovate, Collaborate or Detonate

As technology evolves rapidly, commercial vendors sometimes introduce services that parallel those in the research and education space—often in ways that don’t align with our usual practices. These advancements can present exciting opportunities for innovation, a chance to collaborate and influence development, or a potential threat to existing services. This cross-discipline session will explore how the community has responded to three emerging technologies, examining both the risks and opportunities they bring.

Fast & Furious: Research Edition

Strap in for a high-speed ride through the world of research networking! From deep-sea cables to black holes and stormy weather, this session explores how cutting-edge networks fuel fast, data-intensive research. When data moves at the speed of light (literally), challenges like security risks, infrastructure gaps, and massive data volumes can make or break a project. But with trusted environments, smarter architectures, and faster validation techniques, the research community is shifting into high gear. Whether it’s saving the planet, decoding the universe, or outpacing the next storm, this session proves that in research, speed isn’t just thrilling—it’s essential.

Digital Inclusion

This session showcases how the TNC Community can be "Brighter Together" by looking at inclusion opportunities across a range of activities - from the accessibility of our services, through leadership considerations to diversity in technical teams, our speakers will demonstrate how addressing inclusion can improve our environment for everyone.

Curious About AI

Explore the development of HAWAT, an agentic AI assistant designed for network troubleshooting. This innovative system leverages advanced technologies like Large Language Models (LLMs), Retrieval-Augmented Generation (RAG), and Reasoning and Acting (ReAct) frameworks to autonomously manage network conditions and provide natural language interfaces for network administrators. Next, dive into the AI4LAM initiative, which is revolutionizing the cultural heritage sector. This collaborative network is dedicated to advancing AI tools and services for libraries, archives, and museums, enhancing the management and accessibility of digitized content while fostering innovation and knowledge sharing. Finally, discover the FedXAI4DNS project, which employs Federated Learning and Explainable AI to bolster DNS security in privacy-aware environments. This project showcases how AI can collaboratively detect malicious traffic, ensuring network security without compromising user privacy. This session promises to be a captivating journey through the latest AI innovations, offering valuable insights for anyone curious about the transformative potential of artificial intelligence.

Global Connectivity

This session will shine a light, maybe even a laser, on the global connectivity landscape, unwrapping how different world regions interconnect today and how that might need to evolve into the future. Delivering connectivity and building networks within a single country is business as usual for an NREN, but in this session we will learn about the challenges of deploying connectivity between continents, under the sea, and through some of the most challenging environments on earth. 3 unique perspectives from 3 different organisations will offer a fascinating insight into what it takes to continually enhance capability and keep research and education traffic flowing across the globe.

Lightning Talks: First Strike

Lightning Talks are 5 minute presentations focusing on one key point. This can be an idea, successful project, a cautionary story, collaboration invitation, quick tip or demonstration. This session is an opportunity for ideas to get the attention they deserve. The rules for this session are easy: five minutes and only five minutes to get your message heard by the audience.

Digital ID Plumbing: Making Student Access Flow Across Borders

Looking to explore advancements in digital identity management and student information systems across European higher education? This session covers the need to implement cross-border identity verification and access for international students in Swedish universities, automated course enrollment for European exchange students using eduGAIN and MyAcademicID in The Netherlands, and Norway's implementation of a shared Identity and Access Management (IAM) system. Together, these initiatives demonstrate the education sector's progress toward easing international student mobility while addressing key challenges in security, data quality, and institutional autonomy in an increasingly interconnected academic landscape.

Unlocking Team Power

Join us for an engaging session that explores innovative strategies to foster motivation, strengthen collaboration, and build a workforce prepared for the challenges ahead. Explore practical approaches for optimizing team dynamics and talent management, with a special focus on the unique needs of the cybersecurity and network sectors. Whether you’re looking to implement broad team-building tools or refine your approach within specialized fields, this session will equip you with actionable insights to strengthen your team and drive success.

Big Data Works

"Big Data Works" presents perspectives on handling and analyzing large-scale network data. Gain insights from Brazil’s National R&E Network on leveraging monitoring data for aiding scientific research. Presenters from Restena and CIRCL from Luxembourg reveal how discarded “blackhole” traffic can uncover hidden security indicators and transform defense strategies. Finally, CERN explains how HL-LHC’s upcoming tenfold data surge challenges Research and Education networks, introducing preparatory Data Challenges exercises.

Building the Quantum Future: NRENs at the Forefront

This session will bring you up to date on everything you need to knoq about Quantum developments in the research and education community.

Demystifying Space, Time, and Bureaucracy

Lightning Talks: Second Strike

Lightning Talks are 5 minute presentations focusing on one key point. This can be an idea, successful project, a cautionary story, collaboration invitation, quick tip or demonstration. This session is an opportunity for ideas to get the attention they deserve. The rules for this session are easy: five minutes and only five minutes to get your message heard by the audience.

Bright Cables

Submarine fibre cables are the invisible yet crucial part of global communication. Beyond the original purpose, the same cables are becoming luminous threads enabling us to discover the fascinating world beneath the waves. Join the Bright Cables session to explore how the submarine cable infrastructures are evolving into powerful scientific tools, sensing the pulse of our planet in real time. We will be highlighting how data movers are becoming data generators, from Polar Connect’s strategic potential in harsh and unexplored environments to the SUBMERSE project’s transformative vision of turning network into proof-of-concept environmental observatory. Become a part of the growing, collaborative community illuminating the ocean’s hidden dynamics—seismic shifts, marine life, and other interesting things—with each bright strand of cable lighting the path to the future.

Taming Your Infrastructures

This session will explore key aspects of infrastructure orchestration in NRENs, focusing on automation and management strategies. Topics that will be discussed include simulation and monitoring of network changes, orchestration practices within Europe’s leading research networks, highlighting successful implementation and the lessons learned. Finally, we’ll try to outline future initiatives and advancements in orchestration for NRENs, offering a forward-looking perspective on emerging technologies and strategies. Attendees will gain a deeper understanding of how orchestration can enhance network efficiency, reliability, and scalability. The session will also encourage discussions on the role of automation in shaping the future of collaborative research infrastructures. This session promises to offer a comprehensive view of orchestration in the context of scientific networking, with a focus on innovation and future trends.

Getting Ready For A Crisis

The session will aim to equip you with practical and actionable steps to get ready for a crisis in the cybersecurity field. We’ll start with looking at an example where practical cybersecurity and (cyber-)security education come together to create an innovative security education service. We’ll continue by sharing insights in developing a method for Cyber Risk Assessment, enhancing risk assessment capabilities within the research and education ecosystem. We will also explore key Marketing and Communications strategies for managing crises such as network outages and cybersecurity incidents, helping to mitigate reputational damage and foster resilience resilience in today’s challenging digital landscape.

If You Do Something, Say Something

As an NREN, a working group, or as an individual, we do a lot of things: we create, engage, connect, inspire, collaborate, fix, work, break, learn, innovate, support, solve problems, adapt, grow, win, and sometimes fail. In this session you will learn how to share our successes more effectively and examples how it has been done right. By doing this, we can make sure our hard work gets noticed and has a bigger impact and becomes more visible, helping us build a stronger and more connected digital community.

Knock Knock, Who's There?

This session delves into recent advancements regarding authentication and authorization in the R&E world. It has three speakers from three different continents each with their own topics: improving access to sensitive datasets, describing the transition to a different authentication method for better security and usability and defining phishing-resistant MFA. By listening to the different perspectives of the three continents, we aim to give insight into research access on a global scale.

TNC25 Closing Plenary