Open letter to the Executive University Board: Calling for an end to the university's dependence on big tech

We, the undersigned, express our concern about the University of Groningen’s increasing reliance on services from big tech companies (particularly Google, Microsoft, and Amazon) for our research, teaching and administrative activities. Several years ago, the Rectors of the Dutch universities collectively and wisely warned about this. Since then, little has happened; worse, almost all Dutch universities migrated to big tech cloud services, at the expense of our internally operated computer centers.

The University of Groningen is currently largely dependent on Google and Microsoft for all our office work: emailing, writing documents, creating presentations, making video calls, sharing documents and storing our data. Other significant dependencies exist for several key systems at our university. This creates multiple vulnerabilities, especially in the light of a rapidly changing geopolitical situation.

First of all, there are significant security and privacy risks. Access to adopted services relies on authentication services that depend on transatlantic connections and that may be cut at the whims of the American government. In such a situation, all research and teaching would come to an immediate halt. We are also losing control over our data. Google, Microsoft and other companies, on whose services we rely, can be required by law to share our communications, documents, and sensitive (personal) data with US agencies. The fact that the data is stored on European servers offers no (legal) protection (because of the U.S. CLOUD Act) and any protections that would be offered can be circumvented by US authorities without transparency.

Apart from these immediate security and privacy concerns, our reliance on Big Tech is fundamentally at odds with public values like academic freedom, independence, autonomy and equality— as pointed out already in 2019 by the Rectors. The digital services we use for our research and teaching are profoundly shaping our professional practices; the incorporation of the newest AI-tools in basic software (e.g. integration of large-language models into text editing applications such as Google Docs or MS Word) substantially shape our teaching and research and hence impact our professional autonomy.

Replacement of academic ICT infrastructure with software services from big (american) tech companies has also changed what universities can offer to their community as well as to society in general. This is because universities increasingly favor corporate ICT and management environments over in-house or open source solutions that were specifically developed for universities. In the process, they loose the capacity and flexibility to manage services beyond what is offered by the dominant companies. This inadvertently creates a preferential environment for the biggest players.

These developments transform universities from being a source of innovation and knowledge distribution to consumers of services. Or worse, by moving more research practices and associated innovation into the cloud, big tech companies end up determining the conditions for research, nudging research agendas and outcomes towards implementations in their environments. This means that publicly funded research, intended for the benefit of all, can sometimes serve to entrench the dominance of these few companies into the future.

With this open letter we call upon you to change course:
 
 1) Reduce the heavy reliance of the university on services from big tech companies.
 2) Contribute to greater technological self-determination, resilience and public innovation.
 3) Collaborate actively with universities in the Netherlands and across Europe.

We understand that these developments happened slowly over the years and our university cannot switch to its own IT-infrastructure or rebuild its ICT departments immediately. We therefore ask you to define a point on the horizon and collaboratively define a strategy/roadmap. We ask you to make our university’s explicit policy goal to move universities away from being dependent of big tech services in three years time. Universities, in collaboration with each other and with SURF, need to work towards technical infrastructures and practices that restore the autonomy of the academic community in charting democratic and equitable digital futures.  

Alternatives to big tech offerings — based on non-profit motives, public values and transparency — do exist and are essential for universities to transform digitally. Importantly, the less we use these alternatives, the more our reliance on big tech becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy. Below we list several things which can be done immediately:
  

• Locally: reverse the ongoing transition to big tech and invest in local expertise and deployment, for instance by running our own mail server, initiating Nextcloud initiatives, etc.

• Nationally: use your influence within SURF to make data autonomy a national priority for the (higher) education sector. Help turn universities into an engine of innovation for transformative and equitable digital futures.

• Internationally: work with other European universities (notably in Germany and France, partners that share our values) for an autonomous academic IT infrastructure that can be a source of innovation and resilience globally.
   
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  If you support this petition, sign it below to show your concerns and bring them to the attention of our university. The petition closes on April 16, 2025.
   
   This petition has been opened in collaboration with the initiative at Utrecht University (coordinated by prof. dr. José van Dijck and prof. dr. Albert Meijer), and the initiatives at other universities in the Netherlands

Sincerely,
 (in alphabetical order)
 
 dr. Malcolm Campbell-Verduyn (Co-Editor of the Yearbook on Data Autonomy)
 
 dr. Oskar Gstrein (Data Autonomy Theme coordinator Jantina Tammes school, Co-Editor of the Yearbook on Data Autonomy)

prof. mr. dr. Aline Klingenberg (Hoogleraar Onderwijsinnovatie, datadelen en communicatierecht)
 
 dr. Lukas Linsi (Associate Porfessor, Faculty of Arts)

prof. dr. Jeanne Mifsud Bonnici (Professor in European Technology Law and Human Rights)
 
 Taichi Ochi (representing Open Science Community Groningen)
 
 dr. Titus Stahl (Associate Professor, Faculty of Philosophy)
 
 prof. dr. Ronald Stolk (Senior Policy Advisor)
 
 prof. dr. Niels Taatgen (Director Bernoulli Research Institute)