The GN4 Phase 3 Network (GN4-3N) proposal for part b of the third Specific Grant Agreement (SGA3(b) is made in response to the H2020-SGA-INFRA-GEANT-2018 (Topic [b] Research and Education Networking) call, received 17 October 2018, under the 68-month Framework Partnership Agreement (FPA) established between the GÉANT Consortium and the European Commission in April 2015. It is proposed to last 48 months to implement, as the call requests, a very ambitious restructuring of the backbone network operated by GÉANT in order to provide equal access to clouds and other e-infrastructure services in the European research area and beyond. It will improve the overall resilience and reliability of the GÉANT network significantly and offer a base for future improvements in access, transmission speeds and capacity wherever needed. The outcome of GN4-3N project will offer uniform network access and choice of services to many more partners, eliminating the "digital divide" wherever technically and economically feasible. This project proposal is based on technical and economic studies carried out during 2017-2018 in the GN4-2 project which have given the Consortium clarity on the resourcing, financial and effort, needed to realise the huge ambition of this undertaking. It exclusively covers the engineering, procurement, acquisition and installation of the new backbone network. The day-to-day network operations as the elements of it is commissioned is the responsibility of the teams described in accompanying the GN4-3 project. The GN4-3 and GN4-3N proposals are intimately connected through common teams and the technical, management and procurement expertise built-up over previous GN projects. This is what makes this ambitious proposal realistic. GN4-3N and GN4-3 have simply had to be proposed as distinct projects, due to the different funding model (with no depreciation) to be used in GN4-3N project.

As a 7-year strategic framework this Framework Partnership Agreement (FPA) outlines the overall direction, objectives and impacts without detailing specific deliverables or milestones that will follow in subsequent Grant Agreements (SGAs) that will be actioned under the FPA. In this FPA, the GÉANT consortium of European NRENs propose to evolve the European Communications Commons to provide secure, cost-effective, highly available and reliable services for very high-speed connectivity, identity inter-federation, mobility, security and trust services and solutions; increasing creativity and efficiency of research and ensuring the digital continuum of services to R&E users anywhere in the EU, bridging the divide between developed and less-developed regions. The connectivity and associated services provided are indispensable for seamless, unimpeded access to relevant data, as well as exploitation and management of data generated by European researchers in almost all large research infrastructures. Thanks to successful collaboration between the EC, the GÉANT consortium of NRENs, and their users, these services are second to none, and routinely surpass those of international counterparts. One of the most successful attributes of the GÉANT consortium representing the Research and Education Networks of 44 countries across Europe is the proven ability to agree common interests, while promoting individual or group-led innovations and sharing costs across a diversified membership. GÉANT works with a wide variety of European and global stakeholders to ensure future user requirements for infrastructure are met in a cost-effective and interoperable way. The expertise of hundreds of professionals in R&E networking and industry will be mobilised through the SGAs following this FPA. The GÉANT partners are confident that their joint experience and the leadership of the GÉANT Association will facilitate a successful and impactful execution of a series of SGAs under the proposed FPA.

With the prevailing risk of cybersecurity breaches, improving the cyber security posture and detection algorithms is of utmost importance. Malware is now recognized as the severe threat for commercial and critical IT systems (e.g. financial sector) , but also for citizens (e.g. mobile malware). Still, currently malware is well understood and can be tackled reasonably well. What is becoming more problematic, is the stegomalware and the use of the information hiding techniques by cyber criminals. And here comes SIMARGL: our goal is to focus on this emerging future threat and to significantly improve malware and stegomalware detection. Currently, cyber criminals use quite simple information hiding techniques, but they learn and improve quickly. Our consortium believes that we cannot stay many steps behind, but provide relevant techniques to be prepared for the future attacks and stegomalwre. SIMARGL consortium does not start from scratch (current solutions are described in the proposal) and it features relevant partners, expertise and links to fulfil the project goals.

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.