SURF and Universities of the Netherlands are jointly exploring Mastodon as an open source platform for education and research in the Netherlands. In which public values are paramount. Join us and discover how students, researchers, staff and institutions can experiment with Mastodon in a low-threshold way.
About the Mastodon pilot
SURF is setting up and maintaining a Mastodon environment for education and research. As part of this long-term pilot, we are not only exploring what Mastodon can offer researchers, lecturers, students and staff; the pilot is also aimed at teams working in corporate communications, science communications, webcare and community building.
We are investigating how Mastodon can contribute to visibility, knowledge-sharing, networking and reliable communication, and what conditions are necessary for this.
Practical information for institutions
- For organisations: the Mastodon pilot is intended for institutions in higher education, higher professional education, vocational education, research and university medical centres.
- For users: students, researchers, lecturers and staff at participating institutions can use the Mastodon platform.
- Duration: the pilot will run until the end of 2027. Should the SURF members approve, Mastodon may then be continued as a regular service.
- Continuity: SURF pilots may be terminated early in exceptional circumstances, for example due to a lack of interest or security risks. There is currently no reason for this with regard to Mastodon: the community is growing, the security infrastructure is mature and the security measures have been carefully implemented. Should the pilot nevertheless be terminated early, SURF will inform users at least three months in advance. This allows sufficient time to export data or switch to another Mastodon server. Mastodon supports the migration of accounts between different environments. This aligns well with values such as freedom of choice, data portability and digital autonomy, which we as a sector consider important.
- Costs: Participation in the pilot is free of charge for institutions and users.
More information on practical aspects of the pilot can be found in the FAQ. You can also contact mastodon@surf.nl.
Focus on usage, not on hosting and management
In principle, anyone can set up and host their own Mastodon server. However, anyone wishing to do so reliably, scalably and securely requires sufficient expertise in the fields of IT infrastructure, software, databases, security and privacy. Within this pilot, SURF is providing the technical environment. This allows institutions and users to focus on what really matters: using Mastodon for communication, knowledge sharing and community building.
Institutions remain, of course, free to host their own Mastodon environment, either now or in the future. Mastodon is part of a single large federated network, in which various servers are connected to one another. Institutions and users can also create a Mastodon account outside of SURF, for example via mastodonstart.nl, where many other Mastodon environments can be found.
The SURF pilot primarily offers an accessible route for education and research: secure, managed and without institutions having to set up their own technical environment straight away.
What do we aim to achieve and investigate with the Mastodon pilot?
With the Mastodon pilot, SURF is providing an accessible and familiar environment in which the education and research sectors can discover what Mastodon can offer them. Students, researchers, lecturers, staff, and communications and webcare teams can experiment with visibility, knowledge sharing, networking and community building, without having to set up or manage a server themselves.
We are also investigating what is needed for the sector to build a constructive, safe and recognisable online community. This includes agreements on usage, moderation, group accounts, the use of pseudonyms, accountability and governance.
The pilot also focuses on digital autonomy. At a time when algorithms, platform power, ownership, geopolitics and European regulations such as the DSA and DMA are receiving increasing attention, it is important to explore alternatives that are more in line with public values. Not every alternative to X resolves the issue of dependency: new platforms such as Bluesky or W-Social may be attractive alternatives to dominant platforms, but they also raise new questions about ownership, governance, business models, open standards and future control.
With Mastodon, we are investigating how education and research can communicate more independently, in order to gain greater control over digital infrastructure and public values such as transparency, privacy, accessibility and academic freedom. In this way, we can better safeguard reliability.