What a few days at Copenhagen Towers. With more than 190 participants colleagues from the Nordic R&E networks, service providers, campus teams, and international partners,this year’s NCW surpassed 2023 and brought together a community of both newcomers and familiar faces — roughly 40% first-timers and 60% regulars. Some have joined up to five times, a remarkable commitment for an event now in its sixth edition. It was a week filled with knowledge sharing, challenges, fresh ideas, and, above all, the unmistakable spirit of community. Thank you to everyone who brought their energy, insight, and curiosity. It has truly been inspiring.
The programme included lightning talks demonstrating recent innovations and the breadth of our collective work from AI in education to data governance and quantum computing, as well as in-depth thematic workshops on advanced networking, digital transformation of education, media services, EOSC and data service, trust and identity infrastructure, and security. We also found space for valuable side meetings such as a joint SIG-AI and TF-EDU, a Nordic Time and Frequency meeting, the Nordic Network Monitoring WG, and and the Nordic Trust & Identity group.
This densely packed program created space for deeper, peer-to-peer exchanges and intimate discussions, reminding us how valuable it is to gather across borders and disciplines to address shared challenges and ambitions.
What stood out this year was not only the technical depth of the sessions but the balance that NCW always seems to strike. Between the packed agenda there was room for the informal moments — coffee breaks, shared lunches, and the evening reception — where conversations stretched, ideas were sketched out, problems were raised, and collaborations began to take shape. It was a reminder that NCW is not just a workshop; it is a space shaped by the community itself, participant-led and future-facing, where newcomers blend with veterans and where values and vision sit alongside technical detail.
As we close, the takeaways are clear. There is a shared sense of urgency in keeping our networks resilient, in navigating the ethical and trust questions around AI, in ensuring that media and cloud services can scale sustainably, and in coordinating across borders. There is also a growing appetite for aligning efforts more closely, from strategic forums for media services to deeper cooperation on time-and-frequency distribution.
To all who joined us in Copenhagen Towers, and to those following from afar, thank you for being part of this community. Until the next gathering, let’s carry forward the ideas, the conversations, and the spirit that make NCW what it is.
