RedCLARA and EGI strengthen scientific cooperation between Latin America and Europe with the signing of a new Memorandum of Understanding

As part of the EGI 2026 Conference, held from 21 to 25 September in Ghent, Belgium, RedCLARA and the EGI Foundation signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) to promote the interoperability of advanced digital infrastructures, high-performance computing and bi-regional scientific collaboration.

The EGI 2026 Conference, which brings together leaders from digital infrastructure organisations and scientific communities from around the world, provided the setting on 22 September for the signing of a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) between RedCLARA and the EGI Foundation. Aimed at strengthening strategic and technical cooperation between the two organisations, the agreement was signed by the Director of the EGI Foundation, Tiziana Ferrari, and Mark Urban, Head of International Relations at RedCLARA. Given its significance, the signing was announced by Ferrari during the event’s opening plenary session.

The new agreement establishes a framework for collaboration to advance the development of digital infrastructure, advanced computing services and data-intensive research capabilities, with the aim of benefiting the scientific and academic communities of Latin America and Europe. Furthermore, it strengthens a cooperative relationship based on a shared vision: to facilitate access for researchers, academics and institutions to state-of-the-art digital resources, whilst promoting open science, international collaboration and data-driven innovation. RedCLARA will contribute its expertise as the regional digital infrastructure that interconnects Latin America’s National Research and Education Networks (NRENs), whilst EGI will contribute as one of Europe’s leading federations for scientific computing and data analysis.

The specific objectives set out in the Memorandum include the integration of RedCLARA’s federated identity systems with the EGI Check-in platform, the deployment of EGI Notebooks services within the RedCLARA ecosystem, the provision of federated access to high-performance computing (HPC) resources, and the assessment of RedCLARA’s future integration into the EGI Federation. These actions will enable researchers from both regions to access advanced computing and data management services more easily and securely.

Carlos González, Head of Innovation and Service Portfolio at RedCLARA, states that “this agreement enables us to establish a dialogue to make use, in Latin America, of resources that EGI has developed and made available in Europe, so that researchers across the region can access supercomputing resources – including those within the region – using their institutional credentials. That is the first thing we will do.

“Following that, we will work on determining how we can provide them with access to certain resources in Europe; we will review the communities’ needs regarding supercomputing and, in the medium term, we will explore how to integrate into the European HPC ecosystem. EGI is collaborating with GÉANT to establish standard mechanisms for managing user authentication; this partnership enables us to ride that wave and align with what we hope will become de facto standards.”

The signing of this Memorandum represents a significant step towards consolidating bi-regional cooperation in the field of research e-infrastructures, in line with the efforts both organisations are driving to strengthen the digital ecosystem that underpins science, education and innovation. In particular, this collaboration builds on strategic initiatives that have helped to strengthen ties between Latin America and Europe through advanced connectivity networks and digital services for research.

RedCLARA and EGI thus reaffirm their commitment to working together to expand opportunities for international scientific collaboration, promote the exchange of knowledge and facilitate access to technological capabilities that enable research communities to tackle some of the greatest scientific and social challenges of our time.

On 23 September, Mark Urban will take part, alongside five other representatives from the international infrastructures ASGC (Taipei), C-DAC (New Delhi), CNIC CAS (Beijing) and the EGI Foundation itself, in the session ‘Computing for science: International perspectives’, a panel to be chaired by the director of the EGI Foundation.

Further information:

EGI: https://www.egi.eu/about

EGI 2026 Conference: https://conference.egi.eu/