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| Shaping the future |
| March 2026 |
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| Which (new) technologies are emerging? And what impact will those new technologies have on education and research? SURF shares an overview of important developments, projects and activities in this futuring update. |
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| Let’s go from shared uncertainties to collective activities |
The past quarter (April – June) has been wild at SURF. We had our first SURF Futures Day, followed by the very first Futuring Colloquium in collaboration with HU University of Applied Sciences Utrecht. The Futures Day aimed to raise awareness amongst decision-makers to understand how futuring supports informed decision-making and the importance of dealing with uncertainty in complex times. We had Patrick Henry Gallen, from the Copenhagen Institute for Futures Studies, who set the stage for the rest of the day. The Futures Colloquium was a slightly different event. It aimed to facilitate a deep dive with foresight practitioners. This day sparked discussions and broadened the toolbox with workshops.
In the weeks following the events, we started preparing for the third(!) edition of SURF Tech Trends. You have received a special edition, and I am happy to see the great interest in participating. It is truly an honour, and we consider it a recognition of our activities, initially deployed for SURF members. The project will kick off in October with a dedicated core team of curators. Are you interested in being part of the discussions, but not able to commit to the full process? You can be a guest at our working sessions. We are also pleased to announce that we are looking into the development of future scenarios for education and research in the Netherlands. More info about ‘Tech Trends 2028’ and ‘Future Scenarios for E&R’ projects will be shared in the next quarterly newsletter.
As the summer break is around the corner, it is time to wind down and “recover” for what is to come after!
Gül Akcaova, lead futurist |
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| Learning in shared virtual spaces: getting started with co-creation in XR labs |
| How do you use immersive technology for campus innovation? And how do you enable cross-institutional student collaboration in virtual environments? Our new report and documentary show how Design Academy Eindhoven and Utrecht School of the Arts approached this, with practical tips to get you started. |
| Read more |
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| Swift national 'Future of Compute' vision needed to better exploit opportunities |
| Despite the Netherlands' strong starting position in the compute domain, opportunities currently often remain unexploited. This is due to the fragmentation of programmes that often operate independently of each other. Digital Holland, TNO, SURF, imec, Holland High Tech and Invest NL therefore call for a national strategy for Future of Compute. |
| Read more |
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| Public organisations join forces for Dutch speech recognition |
| Speech is becoming an essential digital infrastructure service. Through the HOSAN project, SURF is collaborating with the government, research institutions, the media and civil society partners to develop high-quality, sovereign speech recognition for the Dutch language. This will provide public organisations with reliable technology that is in line with our public values and digital autonomy.e, public values and digital autonomy. |
| Learn more about HOSAN |
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| Future of Digital Collaboration |
| SURF is organising a series of workshops focusing on the future of digital collaboration. The sessions aim to derive a set of high-level requirements and strategic recommendations guiding the future roadmap of digital collaboration services at SURF. Sign up, join the discussion and contribute your ideas to the future of digital collaboration. |
| More information and registration |
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| Futures Day 2026 – The aftermovie |
| The first edition of SURF Futures Day is a wrap. The event was well-visited and highly appreciated. In case you missed the event, have a look at the aftermovie. The second edition will be in 2028, however, we already allow for pre-registrations. |
| Check the aftermovie & pre-registration |
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| Futuring practice: Yuverta’s new blue & green strategy |
| Yuverta, a VET school, has applied foresight to adopt an outside-in perspective in the development of their new strategy. If you’d like to know more about their approach and learnings, join the seminar on October 8th! |
| Seminar details and registration |
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| 10x Interesting news and reports |
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| Questions, tips or inspiration? Contact us |
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