SURF and Nextcloud

Getting started with Nextcloud

Nextcloud is an open-source collaboration platform. More and more organisations from all sectors are starting to use Nextcloud. In this way, we are exploring alternatives to big tech applications as a sector.

Sign your institution up for Nextcloud within our cooperative

We are delighted that you want to help promote Nextcloud in education and research. From the beginning of next year, we will be rolling out the Nextcloud collaboration environment more widely among our members. Let us know now if you are interested in participating. We want to test our collaboration experience in practice. So please inform your colleagues and encourage them to join in too!

The rules:

• All sectors can participate
• A limited number of places is currently available
• Each institution has a minimum of 20 sign-ups
• Anyone can apply, but the coordinating SURF contact person (CSC) at your institution will ultimately decide whether you can take part
• SURF covers the majority of the costs; a small contribution will be charged per participant

Yes, I am interested

What else are we doing?

SURF has been gaining experience with Nextcloud for some time now. Four years ago, a delegation of SURF members visited Nextcloud to assess whether this collaborative environment could be promising for education and research.

Pilots are currently running in various locations to gain experience with the collaboration environment. For example, the AlgoSoc research consortium works with Nextcloud via SURF, across the boundaries of the five participating universities.

A Nextcloud pilot is also running within SURF, so that employees can gain experience and better understand what users and the IT organisation at our members experience.

Digital sovereignty

Digital sovereignty is an important theme within the SURF cooperative. Since our foundation, we have been guided by important public values such as accessibility, reliability, freedom of choice and privacy. In recent years, there has been a growing awareness that we need to take more control of our digitisation solutions based on public values such as autonomy, humanity and justice.

SURF has initiatives at various levels that increase the digital sovereignty of the sector. Examples include the AI hub, investments in research infrastructure and exploring the possibilities of PeerTube.

The roll-out and pilots with Nextcloud are part of this. These initiatives are intended to investigate how this collaborative environment contributes to strengthening the digital sovereignty and collective autonomy of education and research.