SURF's Mission and Policy
Mission
SURF’s mission is: To improve the quality of higher education and research through ICT-driven innovation. By collaborating within SURF, higher education institutions achieve innovations that go beyond the interests of the individual institutions.
The impact of SURF extends far beyond these institutions. Thanks to SURF:
- the Netherlands has become Europe’s most important public Internet node;
- all Dutch residents have a “digital identity card” (DigiD);
- software is available to the whole education sector at a remarkably low price.
Within its innovation programmes and projects, SURF develops and encourages new ICT applications which often are often “ahead of the market”.
For twenty-five years now, collaboration within SURF has led to the development of products and services that none of the institutions could have created by itself. Joint action also enables the institutions to operate more cost-effectively.
SURF’s Strategic Plan and Annual Plans
- Together with the affiliated institutions, SURF sets out its strategic policy proposals every four years in a Strategic Plan.
- SURF and its operating divisions publish annual plans, based on the Strategic Plan, describing the specific activities for the year concerned.
Keying in to current trends
With the selected SURF themes, SURF is keying into current trends in the field of ICT, education, and research.
Trends in the ICT infrastructure
- Continuing growth of computer power, storage, and networking;
- Increasing importance of ICT infrastructure as resources become more closely linked;
- Increasing versatility of user interfaces to utilise the resources within the “cloud”.
Trends in education
- Education remains “people work”, supported by ICT;
- Open education, in all respects.
Trends in research
- Research is becoming increasingly data-centred;
- Shared facilities and collaboration through ICT;
- Open Access: research data and publications available via the Internet.