Public values

Within education and research, we work together to create a secure digital environment. How do we safeguard autonomy, justice and humanity in a world of increasing digitalisation and vendor dependence? Public values guide us and help us make the right decisions. In what way are these values intertwined with SURF's activities?

SURF and public values

Since its foundation, SURF has been guided by important public values such as accessibility, reliability, freedom of choice and privacy. These topics are highly valued within the cooperative because of the public role we play together with our members. For this reason, it is extra important to also consider these values integrally when dealing with technological and digital issues, and not just look at price or functionality.

There is growing awareness that we need to take more control of our digitisation solutions based on public values such as autonomy, humanity and justice. That is why the public values programme does not only focus on our own cooperative and we look at entire sectors with our members, other public organisations and the government to embed these values within digitisation.

It is precisely when we act together within the cooperative, or more broadly in society, that we can impose firm conditions on suppliers. This way, we protect the privacy and security of our end users and ensure that digital solutions are accessible to use or easy to get out of.