The BELLA-S1 proposal aims to provide for the long-term interconnectivity needs of the European and Latin American research and education networks, and answers the call for transatlantic connectivity to Latin America in the H2020 Work Programme 2014-15. The objective will be to strengthen connectivity to Latin America ensuring very high capacity, cost benefits and the shortest possible route, whilst stimulating diversity over the transatlantic segment. The objective will be met in two phases: phase one will procure an indefeasible right of use for a portion of the spectrum of a direct submarine telecommunications cable between Europe and Latin America; phase two will deploy one or more wavelengths, as required, on the spectrum procured to interconnect the GÉANT and RedCLARA networks, and provide for the intercontinental connectivity needs of the European and Latin American research and education communities.

As one of the first in a series of projects foreseen under GN5-FPA, GN5-1 aims to provide faster, more resilient and secure connectivity infrastructure and collaboration services to enable researchers and students’ access to applications that support evidence-based and effective collaboration across virtual research teams, worldwide. GN5-1 will continue the development of state-of-the art, cost-effective, secure and resilient connectivity to provide unconstrained capacity ahead of demand in the backbone network and NREN access in multiples of 100Gbps, delivering Terabit connectivity where needed. GN5-1 will prototype, pilot and, where appropriate, procure new online above-the-net services and deliver pervasive, innovative and distributed trust and identity infrastructure and services to achieve strategic positioning of T&I services as a key enabler of research and education collaboration within Europe. Trusted access to data sources and services, and authentication and authorisation Infrastructure services, such as eIDAS will also be included. The project will address Horizon Europe’s priorities in areas such as data security and access control, innovation and DNSH, and will expand NRENs' users beyond traditional scientific and research communities, enabling networking and access to the common European data spaces. GN5-1 will ensure access for researchers and students to the valued services required for Open Science, it will disseminate learning and training, and build community as well as align with EU policies and ongoing participation with standardisation bodies. GN5-1 can offer its distinctive services due to its human network of professionals, in a consortium with a deep understanding of evolving user requirements. Within this community, knowledge and experience is shared between partners to constantly enhance the quality of the services offered, making it an indispensable element of the ERA.

The overall objective is to provide a stable environment for the implementation of GÉANT as the European Communications Commons for the European Research Area, which will provide the best possible digital infrastructure to ensure that Europe remains in the forefront of research. GÉANT’s extensive and long-standing contacts with large data disciplines such as biology, radioastronomy and high-energy physics help shape the evolution of the networking facilities required. This is complemented by partner contacts with research domains that are new users of high-performance networks and services, such as: digital preservation, real-time art and humanities. The vision is to position the GÉANT partnership optimally to achieve the strategic objectives of the FPA while ensuring the continuity and improvement of the services successfully offered under the GN3plus FP7 project. The extensive experience of the GÉANT partnership in providing high-quality and innovative services has been applied to the preparation phase of this proposal. The following GN4-1 work package objectives deserve to be highlighted: • Maintain and enhance the production service and achieve cost reductions without negative effects on network service levels. • Coordinate with the other European e-infrastructure efforts both individually and in the framework of the increased coordination effort. • Prepare a new round of Open Call projects to start immediately after the end of the GN4-1 project. • Expand the footprint and the depth of services offered to roaming users with enhanced trust and identity services through Federation as a Service and with group and attribute management added to eduGAIN. • Develop online real-time services to improve the ease and function of videconferencing, open learning support and general multimedia use. • Review the existing service catalogue using the Product Lifecycle Management process to assess the cost/benefits of each carefully to define the future service strategy.

Under GN5-FPA, GN5-2 continues delivering expanded, cost effective, secure and resilient connectivity for unconstrained capacity ahead of demand in the backbone network and NREN access in multiples of 100Gbps targeting Terabit/s connectivity where needed. GN5-2 will scale its digital service portfolio to changing environments, by prototyping, piloting and, where appropriate, procuring new online above-the-net services to enable researchers and students’ access to applications that support multidomain data-driven, evidence-based and effective collaboration across virtual research teams, worldwide. It will deliver pervasive, innovative and distributed trust and identity infrastructure and services taking into account Open Science and eIDAS, to achieve strategic positioning of T&I as a key enabler of research and education collaboration within Europe. GN5-2 will reinforce the network security and its operation in a federated approach, and foster collaborations to innovate and strengthen Europe’s sustainable connectivity with other world regions. GN5-2 will address Horizon Europe’s priorities in areas such as data security and access control, innovation, inclusion, and DNSH, and will expand NRENs' users beyond traditional scientific and research communities, enabling networking and access to the common European data spaces, and preparing non-traditional use of fiber: sensing technologies, Quantum, Time/Frequency distribution. GN5-2 will ensure access to the valued services required for Open Science, disseminate learning and training, and build community as well as align with EU policies and ongoing participation with standardisation bodies. GN5-2 can offer its distinctive services due to its human network of professionals, in a consortium with a deep understanding of evolving user requirements. Knowledge and experience are shared within this community, to constantly enhance quality and security of services indispensable to the ERA, instrumental to EU strategic autonomy

Mission and vision of the project are to be a core contributor to European Open Science Cloud service portfolio, commit to EOSC governance and ensure inclusiveness on the European level. The objective of the project is to support the development and inclusion of the national Open Science Cloud initiatives in 15 Member States and Associated Countries in the overall scheme of EOSC governance; spread the EOSC and FAIR principles in the community and train it; and provide technical and policy support in on-boarding of the existing and future service providers into EOSC, including generic services (compute, data storage, data management), thematic services, repositories and data sets - thus covering the whole spectrum of services related to Open Science, data and publications. The overall approach is that national Open Science landscape in all countries will be mapped, analysed and systematized so as to facilitate both the creation of national OSC initiatives to support the overall EOSC governance, and to engage all stakeholders. A set of providers (generic e-Infrastructure providers, thematic providers, repositories) will be on-boarded into EOSC - following the best practices, policies, guidelines and tools formulated by the project, in alignment with the existing EOSC initiatives and standards. The project solutions provided will be interoperable with EOSC services and will be tested and fine-tuned by real users, and the widest community will be supported in the uptake of research data sharing and practices, in alignment with FAIR principles. Following the work programme requirements, the project will support the operational framework for governance by focusing on coordination between relevant national initiatives, as well as data infrastructures, e-Infrastructures and thematic services, and their federation into the EOSC. The effort is mandated by national governments of 15 countries through explicit Letters of Support.