Four Flemish higher education institutions, in collaboration with Belnet, are taking the lead in making SURF's edubadges service available to higher education in Belgium as well. They are supported in this by Kodeklub and Open Knowledge Belgium.

Your monitoring graphs, your tickets and all your administrative and contractual information will be accessible from 1 July from all your digital interfaces via a new, fully responsive version of the Belnet Portal.

In 2019, the Haute École Robert Schuman (HERS) decided to upgrade its networking equipment, typically a huge investment. Fortunately, the circumstances were favourable: after all, Belnet had just started negotiating a framework agreement for networking equipment for its entire community. This agreement, which was recently awarded to the integrators Infradata and Dynniq after a European tendering procedure, gives all Belnet members access to the best possible conditions in terms of maintenance costs, purchase discounts – with reductions of up to 70 percent – and service quality.

Did you know that there are over 40 National Research and Education Networks (NRENs) in Europe alone? NRENs, like Belnet, offer ultra-fast connectivity and services tailored to the specific needs of universities and research institutions.

In a context of increasing digitalisation, the teams of Philippe Hennebert (IT Director - Institut Jules Bordet) and David Lerens (IT Support Manager for the Clinical Trials Support Unit) play a key role within the Institut Jules Bordet. On the eve of a landmark move, they talk about the role of IT in research, the various challenges linked to the crisis and their long-standing collaboration with Belnet.

The Hospital Network Antwerp (ZNA) is the biggest health organisation in Belgium. In addition to providing care at ten different sites, the ZNA also carries out research. Belnet spoke with Alix Devroye, Network and Security System Administrator, about the challenges which the COVID-19 crisis has brought in terms of ICT and about the increasing importance of security.