Foto van campus Radboud Universiteit gemaakt met drone, met Huygensgebouw in het midden
Foto van campus Radboud Universiteit gemaakt met drone, met Huygensgebouw in het midden

Research on sustainable IT

Will technology solve all our problems, or will it just create new ones? From rising energy consumption due to chatbots to the cloud being filled with our holiday snaps and viral videos – how are we going to deal with this? Our researchers are working on innovative solutions that contribute to a greener digital world.

Huygens building

Green data storage and transport

How can we store enormous amounts of data without harming the environment? Our researchers are developing groundbreaking techniques to make data storage more energy efficient.

Manipulating materials with lasers

Can you manipulate materials with light in such a way that you can store more data on the same surface? According to Andrei Kirilyuk and his INTERPHON team, you can.

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Storing data on polymers

What if we could store data on a thin wire? Led by Hans Elemans, researchers are working on data storage on polymers: a promising technology that consumes less energy than traditional hard drives.

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Faster storage with laser light

Could light be the key to faster, greener data storage? Johan Mentink and his colleagues are investigating how lasers can help store data more efficiently.

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Neuromorphic computing: computers with a “human” brain

Can computers learn to think like humans? Neuromorphic computing, inspired by the human brain, offers an energy-efficient way to solve complex problems.

Video: Alex Khajetoorians explains

Brains and computers are different things. Computers can perform much more complex calculations, but they cannot reason like we do. What if we could create a material that works like our brain? In this video from the University of the Netherlands, physicist Alexander Khajetoorians (Radboud University) explains how he's achieving this.

Cover Whitepaper Neuromorphic Computing in the Netherlands

White paper highlights potential of brain-inspired computing

The white paper, "Neuromorphic Computing in the Netherlands", highlights significant domestic expertise in the field and advocates for the establishment of a national coalition to coordinate future efforts in alignment with other key technologies.

brain

Neuromorphic Scientific Computing: Towards New Hardware

This project will quantify the actual and potential energy reduction of scientific computing with current and near-commercial neuromorphic hardware and benchmark the potential of new neuromorphic hardware platforms for scientific computing.

Datashaming

Every photo, meme or email leaves a digital footprint. How can you prevent the cloud from becoming cluttered, and how can you make people aware of their cyber clutter? Bernard van Gastel explains.

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E-waste

Hard drives, graphics cards, old smartphones: we throw away loads of old hardware. Researchers such as John Schermer and Fatin Battal are working on ways to make recycling more efficient and reuse raw materials.

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Discover our experts

Looking for more experts who can tell you about research into sustainable ICT at Radboud University? Journalists who would like to talk to the researchers listed below can contact the Press & Science Communication Team by telephone (+31 24 361 6000) or email (media [at] ru.nl (media[at]ru[dot]nl)).

Dr B.E. van Gastel (Bernard)
Dr J.H. Mentink (Johan)
Prof. A.A. Khajetoorians (Alex)

More Sustainable IT initiatives at Radboud University

Developing sustainable IT is not only important in our research, but also in all other aspects of our work. Discover the sustainable IT education developed together with students, and how we are making IT processes in our business operations more sustainable.

Sustainable IT in education

Check out these courses in Osiris!

Are you studying at Radboud University and would you like to learn more about sustainable ICT? These courses may be of interest to you. You can find them in Osiris.

  • Green Software (Master's course)
  • Sustainability & IT (Bachelor's course)
  • Big data (Bachelor's course)
  • System and User Approaches to Information Sciences (Master's course in Information Science)
  • New Devices Lab (Bachelor's course)

Sustainable IT in our operations

Radboud University is reducing its footprint by making its hardware, software and data storage more sustainable. The university is also working on smarter and more efficient digitisation: by generating data about the systems used by the university, it becomes clear where there are opportunities for further sustainability improvements.

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How to contact us

Media looking for information or experts who can provide further explanation on this topic can contact the Press and Science Communication team at Radboud University. We are also available for more information about ongoing research, PhD programmes and other questions.

+31 24 361 6000

You may also be interested in these research themes

  • Sustainability in research

    Products, technology and human actions impact the natural world. Research into these effects and how we should adapt is essential in sustaining a habitable planet.

  • Artificial Intelligence

    Ontdek onderzoek over de menselijke kant van artificial intelligence. Bijvoorbeeld met chatbots en robots die ondersteunen in onderwijs en gezondheid, of met algoritmes voor complexe vraagstukken.

  • ChatGPT and other AI chatbots

    Artificial intelligence chatbots such as ChatGPT and Google Gemini use large language models to generate quick, accessible answers to a variety of questions. It presents opportunities, but also risks. At Radboud University, research on this form of...