GARR

GARR is Italy's ultra-high-speed national network dedicated to the education, research, and culture community

It provides high-performance connectivity and develops innovative services for the daily activities of teachers, researchers, and students, fostering scientific collaboration, innovation, and knowledge sharing at the national and international level.

GARR by the numbers

About 1,000 connected sites

24,000 km of optical fiber network

3 million users

The GARR network connects approximately 1,000 sites, including research institutions, universities, research hospitals, cultural institutes, libraries, museums, and schools.

The GARR network is designed and managed by the GARR Consortium, a non-profit association established under the aegis of the Italian Ministry of University and Research, and is recognized as the “sole national research network and part of the European research network GÉANT” in Decree-Law 218 of November 25, 2016 (Simplification of Research Bodies).

Its member institutions include CNR, ENEA, Fondazione CRUI, INAF, INFN, INGV, the Italian state universities, the Scientific Institutes for Research, Hospitalization and Healthcare (IRCCS), and the Experimental Zooprophylactic Institutes (IZS).

The GARR network has also been included in the national roadmap of research infrastructures of European interest and among the priority infrastructures in the National Plan for Research Infrastructures (PNIR) 2021-2027.

A network designed to fit the community

GARR designs network solutions and services tailored to the needs of the education, research, and culture community. Thanks to a participatory governance model, users are not mere consumers but actively contribute to the network's evolution and the development of new services for the benefit of the entire scientific community.

GARR community

Scientific Research

University

Biomedical Research

Schools

Cultural Heritage

Performing Arts

Discover our community

GARR connects Italian research to major international scientific infrastructures

Through GÉANT and collaboration among national research and education networks (NRENs), universities and research centers can work together across any distance, taking part in major global scientific projects.

GARR also contributes to the development of the Internet of the future by participating in international organizations such as RIPE, IETF, Internet Society, and e-IRG.

Mission, values and strategy

Mission

Since the early days of the Internet, our goal has been to provide high-performance connectivity and develop innovative services for the daily activities of teachers, researchers, and students, and for collaboration at the international level.

Values

Collaboration and inclusiveness are our founding values. At the heart of our strategy are the needs of our community, to whom we guarantee neutral, transparent, simple, and reliable connections and services.

Strategy

Design and manage an inclusive infrastructure that delivers unique, high-quality services, optimizing efficiency, cost, and value, in close collaboration with the community.

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Download the three-year plan PDF

Scarica il documento in pdf del piano triennale del GARR

Read the annual report online

The history of the GARR network

GARR was born in the early days of the Internet in Italy, in 1986, led by a group of pioneers with a clear goal: to unite Italy's various experimental research networks into a single, interoperable national infrastructure. From the very beginning, it connected universities and major research institutions, fostering international scientific collaboration. Since then, it has never stopped evolving to support the education, research, and culture community.

In the image, the first connection ran at what was, for the time, an extremely high speed: 2 Mbps

Discover the full history