At the end of November 2022, Gilles Massen, Director of the Restena Foundation, joined the Board of Directors of the European association GÉANT. He has been elected Chairman of the Board for a term of three years. From now on, besides managing Restena and its 21 employees, Gilles Massen is committed to serving the interests of a community representing more than 50 million users in 10,000 institutions across the European continent.
Serving the wider research and education community
The appointment of Gilles Massen strengthens Luxembourg’s involvement, already underlined by the regular participation of Restena employees in the working groups of the GÉANT association. Following on from its involvement in previous European research and education networks, Restena has been a full national member since the GÉANT network was introduced in 2002.
Gilles Massen is now leading a team composed of one independent member and representatives of seven other European National Research and Education Networks (NRENs) active across the European continent: the Portuguese, Italian, Dutch, Hungarian, Nordic NRENs and, since November 2022, the English and Cypriot NRENs. Together, they will actively contribute to building the future of GÉANT by operating in a delicate geopolitical context to ensure that the GÉANT association maintains its ability to provide infrastructures and services that meet the ambitions, firstly, of the research community and, secondly, of politicians.
"It is an honour and a privilege to serve as Chair of the Board. GÉANT is a vibrant community serving the world of research and education which is, by definition, shaping the future of humanity. This is not only a daily motivation for all NRENs, but also drives the wish to personally invest my efforts in GÉANT’s future. As someone who is strongly consensus driven, I wish to make sure that GÉANT continues to cater for its members’ interests and to help to keep the organisation relevant and fit for the future" said Gilles Massen after his appointment.
Restena and GÉANT, inseparable players
Through Restena, the GÉANT association enables the Luxembourg research and education community to connect with their counterparts in Europe and beyond. With its network infrastructure linked to that deployed by GÉANT and all NRENs worldwide, Restena can offer high-quality connectivity services for international research projects at universities and research institutes. With some thirty services offered by Restena, some of which proven and operational at European level, the best-known and most popular in Luxembourg is the eduroam service. It offers a secure and automatic WiFi connection at universities and research institutions worldwide and benefits students, professors, researchers and employees of research and education institutions in Luxembourg.
Less noticeable, behind the scenes of the IT departments of these same institutions, other European services are being deployed: eduID Luxembourg, the TCS Certificate Service and the Cloud - Infrastructure as a Service, to name just a few. These services allow each community member to authenticate themselves for services available worldwide with a single password, to secure their digital communication channels and related equipment with digital certificates, or to adapt their IT resources to meet the changing requirements of their activity on an ad hoc basis.
With its director elected as President of the GÉANT Board, Restena is at the forefront of helping to shape the infrastructure and services that strengthen all research conducted on European soil.