The European Research and Education Networks - Adoption, Usage, and Global Impact of Broadband Technologies - page 151

be an important leap towards the integration of
the scientific potential of Armenia, Azerbaijan
and Georgia with the European Research Area
(incrEAST, 2009).
Although NRENs already exist in the South
Caucasus countries (namely, GRENA in Georgia,
AzRENA in Azerbaijan, NAS RA in Armenia), there
is need for consolidation of these existing networks
and then connecting them to the pan-European
Education and Research Network - GÉANT. The
primary objective of this project, therefore, is to
design interconnection strategies, implementing
those strategies through networking solutions,
and to maintain the established network. Like
the 100Mbps GÉANT-ERNET London-Mumbai
link that makes it possible for scientists in India
and Europe to collaborate in disciplines like
high-energy physics, the BSI project will enable
scientists in South Caucasus to join force with
their European counterparts to solve challenging
problems. Furthermore, dissemination activities
will encourage scientists in both the geographical
regions to exploit BSI for collaborative research.
On the local level, the BSI project will develop
a high-speed backbone network among the NRENs
of the South Caucasus countries and this will sup-
ply the infrastructure needed by the academic and
scientific communities in this geographical region.
The interconnection will provide an impetus to the
Governments in the South Caucasus to implement
projects on e-Learning, e-Health, e-Democracy,
e-Society. Finally, the BSI project will advance
collaboration between scientific communities
based in South Caucasus and working in disci-
plines like earthquake sciences, astronomy, and
high-energy physics. It will provide them access
to resources like online libraries and experiments
results (BSI, 2009).

the over arching pan-European GÉANT network.
It has highlighted the importance of the ERENs
by showcasing six e-Science and e-Infrastructure
projects that are presently being funded by the
Commission. This is but a very small subset of
such projects that are being undertaken both at
the European and the national level, but almost
all such e-Research projects utilise the ERENs.
Moreover, the European further and higher edu-
cational institutes rely on the very same networks
for their day to day operations. It is therefore im-
perative that the European governments continue
to build capacity into the existing networks and
to extend its reach. Furthermore, it is essential
that strategic collaborations with non-European
countries are established so that the pan-European
GÉANT network can be extended and does not
remain confined only to Europe. This would en-
able researchers not only from Europe but from
around the world to collaborate together to un-
dertake scientific enquiry in issues affecting all of
humanity, for example, climate change, response
to natural disasters, finding cure for diseases, etc.
For more information on EU-funded e-Science
and e-Infrastructure projects, the reader is referred
to the BELIEF-II website <http://www.belief-
project.org/>. The acronym BELIEF stands for
“Bringing Europe's eLectronic Infrastructures
to Expanding Frontiers” and it is a global access
point to European e-Infrastructures. BELIEF-II is
a co-ordination and support action project and is
funded by the EU's 7th Framework Programme
under the Research Infrastructures part of the FP7
Capacities Programme. BELIEF-II works with
approximately 50 EU-funded e-Infrastructure
projects on supercomputing, grid computing,
scientific repositories, high-speed networking,
remote instrumentation, e-Science applications,
etc., to ensure effective communication of results
and best practices among the various projects
and their users.
Finally, we conclude with a remark on the
importance of computer networks in today's age.
In some cultures light symbolises knowledge and

CONCLUSION

This topic chapter has provided an overview of the
organisation of the European regional NRENs and