Update on Academic Networks in Europe Structure, Capacity and Costs

Abstract

EUNIS conducted in spring 2000 a survey on the scientific networking in the European universities in its member countries. The survey was updated in February 2001. The main aim was to be able to compare the costs involved in networking from the universities´ perspective. Another goal was to get a general picture of the network structure and speed and the principles of subsidies and cost recovery. It turned out that although almost every country has a national network organization, the network is run in a diversity of ways and the government involvement in subsidizing the costs of networking is so different in different countries that it is virtually impossible to make any exact comparisons. Therefore this paper is concentrating on comparing overall structures, connections speeds, principles of operation and government involvement. The questions were sent to EUNIS representatives in its member countries, plus Austria and Latvia. The rate of answering was 75 % or 18 of 24.