From April to December 2026, Radboud University will participate in the Nextcloud pilot organised by SURF, the Dutch ICT cooperative for education and research. This pilot offers a selected group of staff members at our university the opportunity to gain extensive hands-on experience with Nextcloud: an open, sovereign alternative to Microsoft 365 applications.
Why this pilot?
The pilot closely aligns with Radboud University’s ambition to become more digitally sovereign and autonomous. ‘Digital autonomy’ refers to the ability to make independent choices, even when using technology from third parties. ‘Digital sovereignty’ goes a step further and aims for full control over the entire technological chain (software, hardware and data). In the coming years, Radboud University will need to explore new solutions that reduce our dependence on commercial platforms. Nextcloud —established by SURF as a community service for vocational and higher education (mbo/hbo/wo)—is currently the most widely used sovereign alternative to Microsoft 365.
This pilot provides the university with an opportunity to:
- Discover and test new digital ways of working;
- Gain practical experience with migration processes;
- Explore which solutions best fit our education, research and support processes;
- Provide SURF with insights regarding functionality, usability and required support.
What does the pilot involve?
Staff members participating in this pilot will carry out part of their daily work in Nextcloud for an extended period (at least six months). This is therefore not a brief exploration, but actual work in a production-ready environment. Initially, 100 places are available.
Email integration (such as linking Outlook email and calendars) will not yet be available at the start of the pilot; discussions on this are still ongoing with SURF. This functionality is expected to become available during the course of the pilot.
Interested in participating? Register now!
The pilot group aims for the broadest possible representation of staff across our university and intends to test the functionality in a wide range of contexts. To help assess this, each staff member (or group) wishing to participate is asked to briefly indicate, during registration, what they are interested in exploring when using Nextcloud. This should be described in the form of a usage scenario (use case): what would you like to test and what result do you hope to achieve?
The pilot group is looking for participants who:
- wish to test a concrete usage scenario (project work, team meetings, collaboration with external partners, teaching, research, etc.);
- are willing to actively provide feedback and contribute to the evaluation;
- represent different perspectives: critical, positive, or somewhere in between;
- can accept that the Nextcloud pilot environment will be cleared after the pilot concludes (with support provided to ensure data can be safely retained).
You can register to participate in the pilot via the registration form. Please note: in the form, select ‘English’ as the language option.
Support
To ensure that participants can use the Nextcloud environment as smoothly as possible, support will be provided by Information & Library Services (ILS). If participants have any questions, they can contact the ICT Helpdesk (024 – 3622222 or icthelpdesk [at] ru.nl).
Questions about the pilot?
Please consult the information available in the Self Service Portal.