The Greek Universities Network

The Greek Universities Network (Gunet) is a non-profit company with members all 25 public universities in Greece. GUnet’s mission is to promote, facilitate and coordinate the deployment of advanced information and communication technologies, services, and applications in the Greek academic community, as well as to support the digital transformation of higher education institutions (HEIs) in Greece.

GUnet’s mission includes the coordination of initiatives that advance the e-governance in education and research, the design and development of application platforms for HEIs, and the delivery of digital services for education that run at national level. In its role as central service provider, and through its participation in several EU and national R&D projects, GUnet has developed strong expertise in the areas of data governance, identity management, trust services provision, and advanced e-learning systems. Also, through its national service hub, it provides the data linkages and connection services between the Greek HEIs and the rest of the world.

GUnet provides e-learning services to its members and its project partners through its Center for e-learning and Multimedia (mc.gunet.gr), the learning management system Open eClass (openeclass.org) and the rich media and lecture platform Open Delos (opendelos.org).  Since 2012, GUnet coordinates the development of opencourseware and open educational resources by its members, and it has developed and supports the national portal for open courses (opencourses.gr), which provides open access to more than 4.000 digital courses offered by 25 Greek Universities.  In 2016, GUnet was the recipient of the “Creative Innovation Award for Open Education Excellence“ awarded by the Open Education Consortium.

GUnet is running HARICA (Hellenic Academic and Research Institutions Certification Authority), which acts as a “Qualified” Trust Service Provider (QTSP). HARICA  participates in all major Global ‘ROOT CA’ Trust Programs (Adobe, Apple, Microsoft, Mozilla), and operates as a ‘Trust Anchor’ in widely used application software and operating systems (Adobe, Apple, Google, Microsoft, Mozilla, Linux). HARICA is listed in the National Registry of QTSPs, and has also received a successful Conformance Assessment Report fulfilling the requirements of Regulation (EU) 910/2014 (also known as eIDAS) in the areas of “Qualified” electronic Signatures, Seals and Time Stamps.