SN 3 EP 2: Transforming Research Collaboration In The Arab And North African Regions With Asren’s Yousef Torman

SUMMARY KEYWORDS
African scholarly conversations, Arab States Research, education network, ICT infrastructure, higher education, open science, research collaboration, policy support, capacity building, regional connectivity, funding challenges, science cooperation, open access, data sharing, network expansion
EPISODE SUMMARY
In this episode, we welcome Yousef Torman, Managing Director of the Arab States Research and Education Network (ASREN), to discuss how the organization is transforming research collaboration and advancing open science across the Arab and North African regions. From developing ICT infrastructure to fostering global partnerships, Yousef sheds light on ASREN’s efforts to overcome challenges such as funding gaps and policy barriers, driving meaningful change. This engaging conversation highlights the critical link between technology, education, and scientific progress.
HERE ARE THE KEY THINGS TO LOOK OUT FOR:
Transforming Research Collaboration:
Mr. Yousef Torman shares how ASREN is redefining research collaboration across the Arab and North African regions by building robust ICT infrastructure and fostering regional and global partnerships.

Challenges in Research Networks:
The episode explores the major hurdles ASREN faces, such as funding limitations, policy alignment, and regional connectivity, and how these challenges are being tackled to create sustainable research ecosystems.
The Role of Open Science:
Mr. Torman delves into ASREN’s efforts to promote open science, focusing on advocacy, capacity building, and creating platforms to enhance data sharing, accessibility, and collaboration among researchers.
The Shift to Service-Oriented Networks:
The discussion highlights the importance of reframing the role of NRENs from technical infrastructure providers to enablers of societal impact, showcasing how research networks can support SDGs and broader community needs.

EPISODE TRANSCRIPT
Welcome to Mazungumzo – African Scholarly Conversations, where we are joined by an expansive list of African policymakers, science communication specialists, innovators, and tertiary institution leads who contribute to this realm of science communication.
I’m your host Joy Owango, the Executive Director of the Training Centre in Communication (TCC Africa), a capacity-building trust based at the University of Nairobi, Chiromo Campus in Nairobi, Kenya.
Today, we’re delighted to welcome Mr. Yousef Torman, the Managing Director of the Arab States Research and Education Network, or ASREN. ASREN is the Regional Research and Education Network for North Africa, the Eastern Mediterranean, and the Middle East. The non-profit organization established in 2011 under the League of Arab States, is dedicated to implementing and managing sustainable pan-Arab e-infrastructures for research and education.
Mr. Torman brings over 30 years of experience in ICT within higher education and scientific research. He has been pivotal in developing national and regional research and education networks across the ASREN communities. His work focuses on leveraging technology to enhance education and scientific research, fostering collaboration between ASREN institutions and their global counterparts.

A warm welcome to the programme, Mr. Yousef,
Yousef Torman:
Thank you very much for this invitation, I am happy to be with you, ASREN is part of Africa so, we are there for you.
Joy Owango:
To start us off can you tell us a bit about your background and your journey to becoming the Managing Director of ASREN?

Yousef Torman:
That is a good question but may require a long answer, but I can make it very brief. I started as a computer engineer at the Jordan University for Science and Technology, which is one of the most advanced technological universities in the region. I was the Computing Center Director there for a long time. From there, actually, I learned a lot in terms of how to meet the user’s requirements. At that time, we had only a main computer, and I felt that there were good researchers from day one, but they needed resources. My university was not connected to the internet at that time, so in general we tried to connect the university to the internet but it took us a while until 1993 or 1994, when it was connected, and I can say that my university was among the first universities in the region to provide internet services to the to their students. Of course, that was basic services like registration of students and access to some library services. So, from university, I started the Jordan Universities Network known as (JUNet) which was among the first NRENs in the region at the time, in 2003. It was the only NREN in the world that had its own dark fibre, at that time. There has been some changes since then but it was the only NREN to have dark fibre which was used to pump whatever traffic you want there. It took me seven years managing the Jordan NREN which is called JUNet. During that time, I worked with several colleagues from the North African and Mediterranean Arab countries to establish a regional network. It took us also maybe five years to establish ASREN. I have to thank the European research and Education network, GÉANT, in addition to the rocket commission, support for funding that so from there, we managed to move from several steps. We established a consultant called CAMERON, which is consortium of Arab Mediterranean Research and Education Network. But we did not manage to bring the political support for that from the League of Arab state therefore we started the Arab State Research and Education Network. We managed to launch as ASREN as a legal entity. That was at the end of 2010 when there was some kind of disturbance in the Arab region, which was called the Arab Spring. It was officially launched at the end of by December 2010, but it took as a while to register as a legal entity in Germany, not in Arab region because of political instability in the region.

Joy Owango:
Fantastic, now, it has been operation since 2011 even despite some of the challenges you faced during the Arab Spring, and now you’re fully operational. How has the role and impact of ASREN evolved since its inception, and What do you consider to be some of the key achievements and milestones in its journey so far?

Yousef Torman:
Yes, now, as I said, it was created with the three main objectives. The first objective as well, is to establish the Pan Arab research education network, which is the regional network and in the regional context with regional connectivity as well. The second objective, was, which I call it, the first objective. It was listed as a list. It was the second objective. But for me, it was the first one, which I gave a lot of priority is to start to support hindrance development in the Arab countries, so that we deal with connectivity hindrances in the Arab region before connecting and building the regional network. Third objective is to work on services, collaboration, facilitating collaboration and exchange knowledge among Arab states as well. Let me start with the first, which is the second objective, which is establishing or supporting the development of sustainable network development in the Arab region. When ASREN started we had only four or five mature NRENs in the Arab region. Now we did a lot of work and advocacy and support in the Arab region to further establish NRENs in the Arab region. So, we did manage to now let’s go to the conclusion. I can say that we have more than 15 NRENs in the Arab region, compared to four at that time, or five at that time. We have had recently an announcement from Mauritania and the Djibouti that they have now launched their NRENs. I am proud that we supported the countries to establish their NRENs. That was with a lot of advocacies, a lot of arguments with the decision makers, in addition to providing the know- how on how to establish these NRENs. In any capacity building, they were included in our plans, to further our capacities to further. Let me go back to the first objective. Now the first objective to establish the pan Arab Research and Education Network. It’s really very challenging compared to the other regions. I think Africa is the same. First of all, the price and the monopoly, in addition to political support. So, all this is very complicated to establish, especially that there were no cross-border fibres, for example, in between some countries. But I can see that we managed to establish a regional presence, though it was in London, but is connected to most of the NRENs in the Arab region. We made a huge effort to establish something in the Arab region. We work with the United Arab Emirates, and we work with Egypt to establish some conclusion. But they were not very conclusive due to the monopoly, not one aspect, and maybe they need some kind of regulatory approach, and which we did. But it seems that is more complicated than just writing editor or having a meeting as well. It’s very complicated. I know that you know how the monopoly works in the region. So, we are proud that now we have a regional portal presence in London, and we are establishing now a new regional portal presence in Cyprus. This is one thing, another thing we are discussing with our colleagues in the Gulf is a new set of optical fibres, especially that now we have the Medusa option that will be providing huge capacities for the North African countries, and it will be expanded to the rest of the Mediterranean countries. So, we’ll also have to glue with the Gulf countries. So then, by that time, we can announce that we have the official Pan Arab Research Education Network. Now, for the third objective, which is capacity building, we did a lot of capacity building activities. We also did several conferences, either our annual conference or dedicated conferences for a specific topic, for a specific country. We did several workshops that are target either the technical staff or the scientists or the researchers or the educators. The role of ASREN, now the role of research and education networks and infrastructure is more appreciated and recognized by the policy and decision makers meaning we can receive better support. But that does not apply to all countries. I am proud of what happened. I don’t want to mention examples of specific country, but there are a lot of countries that are now investing in NRENS. But I will not mention names, any name, of any country, unless needed. I can, say for the regional aspect is more recognized by the League of Arab states, in addition to the Association of Arab Universities. So, I think ASREN did a good role, and there is so much evidence that can speak on behalf of us.

Joy Owango
And you mentioned something about the investment, you’re seeing an increase in investment in NRENs in the Arab, and MENA region. And could this be attributed with the investment in ICT infrastructure, and support in the higher education sector. Could that be the reason why you’re seeing this? Because you see, as an NREN, you’re right in the middle supporting the higher education sector through ICT infrastructure. Are you seeing that the countries that are actively supporting the NRENs are also investing more in ICT and higher education. Is that why you’re seeing that commonality?

Yousef Torman:
It’s one of the countries they have ICT Reform. In that country, for example, they are investing in all dimensions related to ICT in the country, including that developing NRENs, now it is very important for them have this NREN in power, with technology, with the infrastructure, so that it can better serve the reform of the ICT in the country. Another example is related to investing in connectivity, The first example is about the, the national policy. The other one is related to the demand of the users. So, we have one country that they have upgraded their international link from one gig to 10 gig because it came up that we did a national conference at that country, and they mentioned that they need to further access to serve, for example and so on. So, the government recognize that they have to fund it. So, they did fund the upgrade from one to 10 gigabit per second, for example. So, it varies from country to country, either with its policy of demand. So, we would like to take the example based on the demand to other countries, so that this will tak to the users so that they can further demand. On the other hand, we encourage policy engagement on that.

Joy Owango
Okay, so now, with the rise of open access and open science, how is ASREN promoting open science among North African Research Institutions and also the MENA region, and what initiatives or platforms has ASREN developed to support and enhance the sharing of dissemination of research?

Yousef Torman:
Yes, so I have to say that open science is sometimes misunderstood. So I believe the first thing that we want, you need to address in the region, and we try to explain what open science is, exactly? Rather than just open access so, what actually contributed directly to this accommodations Back to the issue. So as I said, we need to promote exactly what is open science exactly. It’s more bringing all the opportunities to the researchers, not only researchers, but also maybe the public, or, for example, citizens access to scientific research. So making it open, it will absolutely bring better research, and especially the joint kind of research. From our point of view, we did address that, and we tried to bring, because we are a regional organisation, we want to work at the regional, and support the national. So for work in the regional dimension, we did work directly with the Association of Arab universities, the educational side of arm of the Arab region, and Arab Scientific Research Council, which represents the research dimension of the Arab countries. So for both now we have signed an agreement with all of them, with both of them, so that ASREN will be the leader and the catalyzer and the convener for open sense activities in the region. We did sign another MoU with the UNESCO, UNESCO Cairo region. Cairo, is responsible for the Arab region. So we had signed an MoU with them so that ASREN, would the main counterpart for the open science and data vision in the regional context. What supports that also is, we experience, we have been part of the European Open Science Cloud as an observer and our colleagues are contributed, to that technical task forces. So, we have the experience and the partnership and so on. In addition, we were part of the development of African Open Science Platform. So we, if you look at open science ASREN has been there in many dimensions, that’s in the regional dimension we have now, we are working with counterparts in Arab countries, for how we can take the recommendation further. So we did the identify institutions, libraries, ministries depending on the country. Each country has its own specificity of taking the responsibility for open science and so on. We are building a new model, so we will be supporting the national in terms of at least building the community first of all, the community of open science responsible or practitioners. We included that in Africa, but it was not enough for us because it was only four countries but we are talking about 22 countries, so I would like to thank everybody for helping us out, we need wider engagement, so we did add that also to the new project with the European Commission. This is called the limit plus, which will come soon and be announced. So from there we have several dimensions. One very important aspect of the Open Science is, how will you support open science as services, service business based Open science service. So we definitely, we need to have some kind of mechanism. It could be platform, it could be software, it could be digital infrastructure. You can call it whatever you want. I call it the mechanism or the vehicle. So I can use the term cloud, but does it mean that, you know, just boxes of servers and so on, and some tools. It’s everything that supports us to provide services to the research communities so that they can be part of the Open Science way of doing research, and provide them with the access to the right tools, applications and services in our open science technology. So in general, I believe we need to work at the policy level, the regional and national context, in addition to promoting the right context, it has to be accompanied with services. Otherwise, the end users will not believe in your services, calling them stories and theories, they would not like that, and I think doing that we will be promoting our infrastructure, but I think now we have. Because we cannot demonstrate the infrastructure except that there is a network and connectivity. But now we cannot say that there is a service that they can touch. So, we have our plan to have the promotion advocacy together with services. This services are based in open science models.

Joy Owango
What has been your observation on the adoption of open science principles in the North African, Mediterranean and middle eastern regions? With the advocacy you’ve been doing

Yousef Torman:
To be frank, in general, I have to say that many things in Africa come in championship based rather than the government led this, at least I can say that the governments have engaged in a way rather, but we are very slow sometimes they lack the continuity. Because a new Minister is appointed every six months with new ideas. I thought, sometimes, actually let’s avoid the politics and so on. Now many initiatives in the region are coming from this whole championship like people or institutional institution or a person or an organization that is entrusted to be there, and they are trying to lead so we are capitalizing on that. But in general I have to say that some countries now have a stable approach on open science. But again, it’s more into open access and open data. I cannot announce for example this is one of my countries now has a real road map on open science, I can say, I am proud for example. I don’t want to mention examples but we have some countries that have a lot of achievements and but it’s more into more open access and open data as well which is good, but it’s not enough. Just one more thing I want to add. It’s the coordination of efforts. open science events are scattered everywhere even in the regional context. For example, in October 2022, I was invited to a conference in open science in the same city, on the same day, two events on open science and they were both supported by UNESCO at the same time. It has to be better organized that is why we are trying at ASREN to harmonize things in the regional context. So that, when it comes to regional whos speaking open science for the regional context ASREN is the convener. So I think the efforts has to be, and I a solution, what country without name again, that they have three initiatives on open science, and we don’t know who would be leading, what else

Joy Owango
Oh no, no I get you, so basically, what you’re saying is?

Yousef Torman:
Coordination is very important. Approach the right people, establishing so.

Joy Owango
Exactly so having a central convener will help catalyze the conversations, to make sure that you have uniform conversations. And then I also, I get where now what ASREN is really trying to push for in the Northern African and Middle Eastern region, because right now, open science is a buzzword, and you don’t want so many people having similar conversations. It needs to be centralised. And one of those people who are centralizing it have to be leaders in the higher education sector, and I think ASREN is suitably placed for that. But I also understand your frustration when you’re saying that your observation, the immediate observation, is that the understanding of most of the countries in Northern Africa, Middle East and the Mediterranean, take on open sciences, is open access and even open data, and I think it’s mainly because it’s a low hanging fruit. It’s how do you protect your data To what degree do you share your data? And when it comes to open access, it’s about publishing. It’s the cost of publishing, the visibility of your work. But there’s a need for understanding the bigger picture on what Open Science entails and how it can support the academic community holistically. And I believe ASREN would be a great partner to work with in convening such conversations and bring in all the stakeholders so that you can have cohesive conversations, am I right?

Yousef Torman:
I think it’s that, we believe it’s based on consultation and observation it not only, we decided to be there. It has been, as I said, it has been recognized by the regional player. No body can come and say, I want to open science. Open science is not something that you can borrow, something that you adapt. So I think it’s selling the idea of the Open Science is very important. So for me, I don’t understand open science beyond what I just said. But this is what is the language that we want to sit at the level of policy and so on. And we will have later on, we can have the first four. We’ll have the experts who will be, who will be working on setting, the strategy, or the road maps, or the policy structure as well. So it has to be organized, and it cannot be like efforts, again it has to be organizing to this, at least for a region where we have relations and so on. I think this is the model that we are happy to have.

Joy Owango
Okay, so now, as we are looking ahead, what do you see are the collaborative initiatives that you’re working with your sister regional research networks, in this case, the Ubuntu Alliance that represents Eastern and Southern Africa, and WACREN, which represents Western and Central Africa. So, what joint initiatives or best practices are you sharing among these networks?

Yousef Torman:
We call ourselves, the three regional networks, we call ourselves AFREN, so AFREN stands for African Family of Research and Education Network, so we try to work as a family. So we have Boubakar, I have to mention Boubakar who is the CEO of WACREN. We are brother working with just an organization. The same for Madara and he’s successors. We did, we had a lot of work together. Maybe the best thing that brought us all together is the Africa Connect Project, I have to say, and I have to thank that European Commission and GÉANT for making this opportunity to work, and fund our work, our meetings, our discussions and or also our plans so I’m thanking everyone for it. Now AfricaConnect3 (AC3) was the main means for us to collaborate and establish, even before the Open Science evolved, we started in AfricaConnect3 (AC3) to get engaging with science communities. This is what I like, because we could recognize the needs, and actual technologies or tools, whatever they needed. So, we started with one community in AfricaConnect2 (AC2) which is called AfriGEO (The African Group on Earth Observations). It was a very big community. And later on, we were engaged with the GMES and Africa (Global Monitoring for Environment and Security) with the African Union Commission. In addition, now we have engaged with around 10 communities in the continent. So, we try to meet with them, discuss with them, so that we can recognize what they need. So this part, I think, was key for us to see how we can be better served, and when UNESCO announced its open science recommendations, we were aware that these are our needs and how we can meet the needs and the requirements of these. So I am proud of working with both, and if you see for example ASREN was the lead in joining with Scholarly GEO which is a community that comes based on state membership. But ASREN was there as an observer, associate actually I think it was member associate I don’t remember the naming but we were there as an NREN that we are part of the how can we GEO achieve, when I say GEO it is the Groups on Earth observation, how they can do research based on the Earth observation observatory results and satellite images as well, how they can better do the analysis and the research and the manipulation of data so that they can report to the decision makers. So, ASREN was official, but then the others followed, so this is a good example that we are now more engaged. So, we are coordinating all together. Three of us also contributed to the African Open Science Platform (AOSP) as one of the big consumers of open science in the African continent. So we are always in coordination even though we are not part of the new Africa Connect 4 (AC4) , but we are still coordinating, and you will see us in different conferences, we always meet and discuss and we are coordinating in a very good manner.

Joy Owango
Fantastic, so, when looking ahead? What do you see as the next big challenges or opportunities for NRENs in Africa and the Arab region, and how is ASREN positioning itself to address these challenges and opportunities?

Yousef Torman:
I said the challenges at the beginning, they remain the challenge. Funding is always an issue. In addition to political support, which is what sometimes is missing or sometimes it’s misunderstood. Now the promotion also. I think we have the challenge, we are not promoting ourselves as the mechanism, for example I have to say that we are promoting ourselves as a infrastructure provider so, nobody understands. If you go to a minister, I tell him that I need a switch and router and connectivity, he will not understand you. But if you go and speak for example, I can help you achieve one SDGs for example to do research for achieving climate actions or so, he will listen to you. So my message, and if you see one of my, I did some kind of presentation in UbuntuNet Alliances conferences and it was also adopted by the GÉANT network so they published an article on my view of thisIf you allow me, I don’t know how much time we have, but this might be worth mentioning. NRENs should be invited to engage with global observations, look at what’s happening around the globe, the challenges, and the global trends. For example, consider initiatives like the Global Digital Compact, COP27 or COP28—whichever stage they are at now. There are significant challenges, particularly related to climate action. To achieve meaningful progress on climate action, research is essential. However, policymakers often aren’t aware that NRENs are available to support these efforts. So my message to my family of NRENs, is that we need to look what’s going around and take it up also, to speak the language of science not just the language of technically. We keep shouting NREN infrastructure technology, routers…Does this resonate? I have to say that, ASREN is also leading and I hope that others will follow. ASREN is now the convener of the Arab Science Cooperation Summit, so we are promoting science cooperation. Let’s see how to cooperate, then we can say, you need this technology it comes.. but first of all we need to understand that they need to cooperate to achieve the SDGs, to achieve the challenges of the region and the Earth observation requirements and all of that. And they have say that the United Nations is ready for that. Now we have the Global Science Summit that comes together with the United Nations General Assembly. It has several, it a huge event that comes with thousands of speakers for around three weeks, and ASREN is one of the conveners for that. The United Nations is now working on, what is beyond SDGs? They have the Summit for the Future or something like that, and this summit is coming with three main pillars; sustainability, solidarity and science. So we need to take this opportunity to see that science is at the leader of the United Nations, the top ladder actually. So if you look at that, science is there and we achieve, we serve science not only through infrastructure but also tools for open science. So I believe my message to my NRENs and regional networks is the language, speak the language, don’t go and say I need the router, I need the switch. For me I would go to a minister for example, I tell him how can you achieve SDGs? I see maybe you need to do more research, more education. Yes, that is exactly it, we need more tools, we are there to provide more tools, and these tools would require making an infrastructure. So I think we can work to take it the other way around. I would like this message to be shared with everyone.

Joy Owango
Fantastic, and I think that’s a nice way to wind up, because what you’re seeing is that there’s a need for increased cohesive conversations, despite the language barrier, it shouldn’t be a hindrance in making sure that the stakeholders have access to the support and the services. But most importantly, what you’ve noted is that as much as you’re a technical partner, and when I say you as an NREN, it means just not only ASREN but also the other NRENs. You need to stop having conversations from an NREN technical level, but from a service provider level, such that the community can know how you can support them. But it’s also good to see the developments that are happening in the Arab region, the various levels of adoption and also the understanding, even though it’s just the beginning, the understanding of what entails open science, even if they’re just looking at the pillars, certain pillars like open data and open access, I believe it’s just, it is the beginning of such conversations that can lead to national cohesive conversations on open science and the contribution of ASREN to this so thank you so much. Yousef. Thanks for your time. This has been a very interesting conversation and goodbye for now.

Outro:
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