Blog

Networkshop – a valuable opportunity to learn about the opportunities and threats faced by our community

Bella Abrams headshot
by
Bella Abrams

A personal view from Bella Abrams, Jisc's chief technology officer, on the recent event for IT leaders held at Nottingham Trent University and online.

Bella Abrams, Jisc's group chief technology officer, speaks at Networkshop 2025.

Networkshop is a cornerstone event for digital leaders, IT professionals and technical experts to listen to inspiring keynotes, gain critical sector insights, and practical opportunities discuss shared challenges and emerging solutions with peers.

Here are some of the thoughts I came away with after an energising and thought-provoking few days:

Being a ‘poacher turned gamekeeper’ is a huge positive

This was my first Networkshop since joining Jisc about seven months ago from my previous role in technology at a university. I used to be a Jisc customer, so you could say I’ve gone from poacher to gamekeeper!

When I introduce myself to people, I’m proud to tell them that Jisc serves higher education, further education, and skills – and I’ve worked in all three. That’s why I want to focus on helping our customers understand and resolve challenges rather than just showing up with tech and seeing how it lands. It’s about technology serving the customer, whether that’s in education, research or the public sector, not the other way round.

It’s not just about the big stuff

Everyone talks about the big projects and there are some great examples of Janet enabling ‘giant science’ – like the Vera C. Rubin Observatory, which used the Janet Network to transfer huge amounts of data, and our work with CERN and the Large Hadron Collider.

But hearing how customers use what we do day to day has been vital for me – when you’re new in an organisation, you want to understand the impact.

Bringing it back down to earth, Janet is here to support students, researchers and universities every day – they don’t have to think about how it works, it just does. We do as much Netflix as we do particle physics!

There’s a real appetite for collaboration

Institutions are changing their technology rapidly – for example they’re shifting from on-premises to cloud IT, and service demand is 24/7. They are thinking about financial and environmental sustainability, edge computing, trust and identity – for IT leaders, there’s a lot on their plate.

Although there’s no doubt that these are fast-moving and sometimes difficult times for the sector, I came away from Networkshop feeling that there’s a real appetite for working across departments and institutions – after all, we’re all in it together.

More and more, technical specialists are finding that collaboration is becoming essential in research, teaching, admin, and for financial necessity. Hearing from them first-hand helps us understand how our products and services can help our customers face into their challenges.

Cyber security is a never-ending battle

I gave a college principal a shock recently by telling them: you are going to be attacked – it’s a case of when, not if – so practice going back to paper. In a previous role at a university, we simulated having no IT during A-level results and clearing – it gave everyone the collywobbles, but it focused minds!

AI tools are making the cyber security challenge even bigger as cybercriminals use them to be faster at infiltrating infrastructure – but we can use it to respond more quickly as well. Where we see potential is not in replacing network, platform and cyber professionals, but helping them to do more, more quickly.

Let’s keep the conversation going

The theme of our upcoming Security Conference 2025 in November is resilience, and we’d invite both technical specialists and senior leaders to attend and gain actionable insights, connect with peers and explore real-world solutions to strengthen resilience, drive sustainable progress and shape a secure digital future.

Next steps

Find out more about Security Conference 2025 and book your ticket.

Connect with your relationship manager or make a customer enquiry to talk about the challenges you face , and how technical security thinking can work hand-in-hand with strategic decision-making.

About the author

Bella Abrams headshot
Bella Abrams
Group chief technology officer

As the group chief technology officer at Jisc, I provide strategic leadership for our technology developments, ensuring our customer offer and products are fit for purpose, strategically aligned, high performance, secure and stimulate innovation for the benefit of the further and higher education and research sector.