NWO and SURF: an additional €165 million a year structurally needed to keep science in the Netherlands

Growing demand and the consequences

From supercomputers to research networks and data facilities: the current digital infrastructure will no longer be able to meet the rising demand in the short term. Failure to invest will have consequences for the Dutch (scientific) business climate. It is possible that supercomputers, network hubs and data facilities will disappear from the Netherlands.

Indispensable link in tomorrow's earning capacity

Today's research forms the foundation of our earning power for tomorrow. The digital infrastructure is an indispensable link in modern research, which provides answers to societal challenges. While other countries are investing heavily, the Netherlands has actually fallen further behind. Since 2019, no or very limited inflation correction has been applied and budgets have not been indexed. Measured by the scale of national computing facilities relative to gross national product, the Netherlands has now dropped from 7th to 20th place in Europe.

Required investments

The advisory report by the Dutch Research Council (NWO) and SURF outlines the current state of the digital infrastructure for research. Based on an extensive inventory and international benchmarks, it concludes that action is needed now to keep high-quality research in the Netherlands. NWO and SURF therefore advise the Ministry of Education, Culture and Science and the incoming government, to structurally invest an additional 165 million euros per year in the digital infrastructures for research.

With this amount, the digital infrastructures in the Netherlands can be brought back to a competitive level. It is needed for investments in national and local computing facilities, data storage and network infrastructure, Authentication and Authorisation Infrastructures (AAI), and security. It is also required to connect the Dutch infrastructures to international collaborations such as supercomputers or AI factories.