An achievement story "AzScienceNet's participation in EaPConnect brings benefits to research and education in Azerbaijan" was published on the EaPConnect website:
The research and education community in Azerbaijan has experienced easier access to a wider range of online services and greater opportunities for international collaboration during the past five years, thanks to support by the national research and education network AzScienceNet and its participation in the EU-funded EaPConnect project.
The first EaPConnect project ran until the end of June 2020 and was followed by a second project to further build on the successes of the first phase. So what were those successes from the AzScienceNet perspective?
High-level agreement within Azerbaijan
On 22 June 2018, a high-level agreement was signed to strengthen cooperation between Azerbaijan’s higher education institutions and those in Europe. The signing took place during a meeting to present EaPConnect and its contributions to science and education integration in Azerbaijan.
Network connectivity improvements
Students, researchers and academics can better collaborate internationally thanks to improved Internet connectivity with more competitive market prices, achieved with the help of EaPConnect procurement activities led by GÉANT. Prices for R&E Internet connectivity dropped substantially since the project first tendered in 2016 and the network capacity increased by around tenfold.
World premiere at Azerbaijan’s first ‘LoLa’ concert
The ‘Connecting Traditions’ concert on 20 December 2019 was the first performance in Azerbaijan using ‘LoLa’ low latency data transmission technology, which allows artists in geographically distant locations to work and perform together in real time. LoLa was established in Azerbaijan thanks to the EaPConnect project and MIRCO, a winner of the project’s Enlighten Your Research Programme. The concert featured a world premiere of new music for traditional instruments from Azerbaijan and Estonia, where some of the performers were located. The event involved collaboration between AzScienceNet, the AzEduNet network at the Baku Music Academy, EENet of HITSA at the Estonian Academy of Music and Theatre (EAMT), and the Italian research and education network GARR.
"In recent years, with support of GÉANT, reconstruction works in AzscienceNet play a major role in making our research work more productive. Thanks to the EaPConnect project, researchers from our institute are able to use services provided by GÉANT through AzScienceNet and hopefully, scholars will continue to benefit from these opportunities.”
Ramiz Aliguliyev, Correspondent Member of ANAS
Anticipating outcomes of the second project
‘EU4Digital: Connecting Research and Education Communities’, the second EaPConnect project started on 1 July 2020 and will build on the achievements of the first project.
The project partners shared their hopes for the second project in the GÉANT CONNECT magazine.
What does this mean for Azerbaijan?
In the new project, I expect we will witness the introduction of ever smarter, increasingly advanced network services, that take into account any developments arising in the ongoing Fourth Industrial Revolution and artificial intelligence technologies.”
Prof. Rasim Alguliyev, Vice President of Azerbaijan National Academy of Sciences
