The joining of forces in SURF has achieved many successes over the past twenty years. Collaboration has resulted in services and products that could not have been achieved by the institutions in isolation. SURF initiatives have an impact through the combination of high-quality knowledge, advantages of scale and a demanding user group.
SURF collaborates with a number of partners abroad to share knowledge and to profit from advantages of scale. The results that SURF achieves are also guiding examples in an international setting.
SURF provides the foundation for the excellence of higher education and research in the Netherlands. A few examples:
Researchers are provided with unfettered access to scientific knowledge and instruments anywhere in the world, due to the high-quality network technology of SURFnet6, one of the fasted and most advanced networks in the world.
Teaching staff can increase the effectiveness of the education that they provide through on-line collaboration with colleagues and students. They can learn how to use new ICT applications through the SURF services and they can share their expertise in Special Interest Groups.
Students can take advantage of easy authentication at an increasing number of educational institutions. This allows them to just open their laptop as a guest user and gain access to their own files. Also, the SURF licence brokerage services allow them to order affordable software through SURFSPOT.NL.
Higher education institutions are provided with a wide range of possibilities to collaborate in the fields of information architecture, student administration and ICT products to significantly ease the administrative burden.