Report on the NATO Advanced Workshop

"Research Networking in Central and Eastern Europe"

Budapest, Hungary - 20/21 October 1993

Peter Bakonyi Ph. D
Budapest Workshop Director
Hungarnet - Executive President
RARE - Member of the Executive Committee
E-mail: h25bak@ella.hu

Organized by:

• Hungarian National Committee for Technological Development
• RARE - Association of Networking Organizations for Research in Europe
• HUNGARNET - Hungarian Academic and Network Association
• Supported by: - NATO

Role, benefits and services of research networks

- Support research and development activities

- Testbed for new technologies

- Drive towards better commercial services

- Impact on IT development on national scale.

- Access to information

- Access to remote services

- Speed of interaction with remote partiers

- Cooperative working within large distributed group

- Sharing of expensive resources

Objective of the Workshop

• to bring together, for the first time at an international level, policy makers, Research Network service providers and funding bodies.
• to create a coherent set of policies for the management and implementation for CEE countries by drawing on the experience of those who have already faced the need to solve these issues.

Guidelines:

• Workshop should assist in implementing a sound Research Network strategy
• based on the needs of CEE countries and experience gained elsewhere
• starting jount is the present situation but taken into account expected changes, future trends

Short summary of the event

Opening by
Erno Pungor -- Minister w. p. Hungary
Jean-Marie Cadiou -- Assistant Secretary General - NATO
Kees Neggers -- President - RARE
Barry O'Shea -- Head of CEC DG XIII:-C2.

Participants:

• From 21 countries, 7 international organizations (CEC, NATO, RARE, NORDUNET, EARN, UNESCO, Internet)
• No. of participants : 70
• Ministerial level: Bulgaria, Czech Rep., Estonia, Hungary, Latvia, Lithuania, Poland, Rumania, Russia, Slovakia, Slovania and Ukraine.
• Top level networking experts from all over the world.

Key Program points:

• Networking situation in the world and in the participating countries
• Vint Cerf president of Internet Soc. global situation in networking
• Larry Landroeber and Tomaz Kalin (the US and European scene)
• Presentation Country by country (CEE countries and supporting countries like Austria, Germany)
• Funding situation in Eurore
• NATO - outrich program - (J.P. Nadreau)
• PHARE - activities - (A. Gribben - CEC DG - I)
• UNESCO - programme for informatics - (Rene Cluzel - Intergov. Inform. Programme)
• Discussion of the policy paper prepared for the workshop by the Programme Committee Identified key issuess for future development of networking:
• Why is R&D Networking important
• Organizational issues
• Future Networking developments
• Financial aspects

Important statesments by the workshop:

• networking is a national strategie issue
• success requires political commitment
• funding needs to come from government (infrastructure)
• research networking is on the leading edge with a strong interaction with the national economic development
• stronger cooperation with industry and other fields is important

Concrete action plan:

• increase involvement of CEE countries in Pan European networking organizations: RARE, DANTE, RIPE, .....
• elaborate project proposals presented to the workshop in details and submit to funding bodies.
• plan training seminars.
• arrange on job training fellowship.
• prepare for the translation of the available materials into local languages.
• set up connectivity planning groups for CEE countries.
• short and longer term planning of network integration.
• coherent interaction with funding agencies.

Follow - up activities

1. Project proposals:
• OKO project - NATO directory data base - 11 countries- institutions in the field of telecommunication and informatics
• PHARE project -CEC 4mECU- for CEE countries for integration to European networks
2. Training seminars:
• Advanced workshop for R&D network operators. (Prague - Jun. 1994.) NATO
3. Connectivity planning group:
• RARE umbrella
• CEENet - a non legal Association specially established for coordinating network integration in the CEE region
4. Advanced Networking Workshop in Moscow - Sept. - 1994 Purpose:
• shared vision to present to potential supporters
• identify avenues for further cooperation.
• organisational framework for networking in Russia
• identify funding parties pontetials.