Fit for the future - the GN5 projects

National Research and Education Networks (NRENs), of which DFN-Verein is one, have been making a significant contribution to the rapid development of research and education with their services for many years. The European Union (EU) supports the cooperation of national research networks in Europe by funding the GN project series. In 2000, this was initiated with the GN1 project, and more than 20 years later we are now in the fifth edition with GN5. Over the years, the projects have undergone many changes and have by no means become a matter of course - each application, each review and especially the anchoring in the EU's work programmes are always a new challenge. Since 2014, the GN project series has been coordinated by the GÉANT Association, the association of all European national research networks.

With the two projects GN5-1 and GN5-IC1, the starting signal was given for the first phase of the GN5 project series at the beginning of January 2023. To kick things off, around 74 task leaders, work package leaders and coordinators met in Dordrecht in the Netherlands on 31 January and 1 February 2023 for the first Project Management Convention. The goals of the meeting were to set the framework for the two-year project GN5-1, to involve new colleagues and to develop a common understanding of the goals and cooperation for the coming two years.