Memorandum of Understanding on Collaboration signed with GÉANT (EU)

The National Institute of Information and Communications Technology (NICT) and GÉANT have signed a Memorandum of Understanding on Collaboration in the field of R&D communication network and Advanced Internet Technologies on 26 January 2016. The signing ceremony was held during the 41st Asia Pacific Advanced Network Meeting (APAN) in Manilla, Philippines. Dr. Makoto Imase, Vice President of NICT, attended the ceremony to sign the MOU.

GÉANT is the organization interconnecting National Research and Education Networks (NRENs) across Europe, with 36 national members and one representative member (NORDUnet) which participates on behalf of the 5 Nordic NRENs. They have started the activities in 1986 and are currently managing and operating the NREN’s interconnecting networks across Europe as well as providing ID management, security and cloud services. GÉANT headquarters are located in Amsterdam, the Netherlands, and Cambridge, the United Kingdom.

NICT has been collaborating with GÉANT (formerly Delivery of Advanced Network Technology, DANTE) since 2008 under the MOU. GÉANT and NICT have promoted this research collaboration making use of networks for the Japan-Europe collaborative R&D projects. This renewed MOU specifies the collaborations on Ethernet services and Software Defined Networking (SDN) infrastructures and so on.