BoF: Public Affairs in R and E Networking Working Session
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This meeting proposal is a follow-up of the proposed session “Public Affairs in R&E Networking.†Although it would be very useful to have had a session during the conference, where strategies, topics, and best practices will be addressed, this could also be a stand-alone meeting.
The goal of the meeting would be to gather individuals responsible for public affairs in their organizations to discuss whether NRENs could strengthen their public affairs activities by collaborating internationally. Can we share strategies or help each other in developing strategies?
Can we collaborate internationally on storytelling? Storytelling is partly done by the inthefieldstories initiative, but that seems to be focused on use-cases. Can we also share stories about the (economic) impact of innovations by NRENs?
To summarize, the major discussion topics would be:Â
• Identify substantive public policy topics for international collaboration
 • Explore different public affairs strategies and how we can help each other
 • Storytelling on innovation and economic impact
Background Information:
NRENs play an important role in facilitating research and education. R&E networks are purpose-built and dedicated to meeting the specific needs of the R&E community. They offer the most advanced infrastructure, trusted network-to network collaboration, and resource sharing throughout the country.
Whereas the development of networking itself used to be an important reason for investing in R&E networks, the world has changed. There is more focus on the facilitating aspects of digital infrastructures and on output or return on investments.
It also seems that governments increasingly have a tendency to retreat and leave the development of digital infrastructures up to the market. Their rational seems to be that the cloud can take care of digital infrastructures.
 As a result, it now is more important then ever to explain to policy government official the value of NRENs, their contribution to innovation and economic growth, and their relation to the cloud. One way to do that is by storytelling, showing the impact of innovations by NRENs or from the usage of digital infrastructures.
