Smart campus

Collaborations and projects

Everyone recognises the image of the student wandering through buildings in search of the classroom, you remember the vague panic of yourself when you had to deal with this. Educational buildings seem huge, cluttered, almost intimidating. Through wayfinding, we would like to help students, as well as staff and guests, find their way.

SURF sees the development of the smart campus as a joint voyage of discovery in which technology and ethics come together. Together with the University of Groningen, NHL Stenden, the Hogeschool van Amsterdam, and TU Twente, we are conducting pilots to test innovative applications.

With projects on wayfinding, IoT networks and community building, we are laying the foundations for a future in which campuses become increasingly connected and user-friendly. Below is an overview of all initiatives.

Pilot wayfinding; finding your way around the smart campus

At various MBOs, HBOs and universities, there is a need for a well-equipped digital wayfinder. Several institutions are already working on this in their own way, or have this topic on their roadmap.

In May 2023, NHL Stenden University of Applied Sciences and SURF organised an interactive meeting to reflect on the wishes, experiences, knowledge and expertise around wayfinding. The findings, solutions and recommendations of this pilot can be found in the report Wayfinding - State of affairs 2023.

Innovating together with IoT

SURF works with knowledge institutions on smart IoT solutions for education and research. Think more flexible education, better research data and the smart campus of the future. But technological diversity and rapidly changing standards pose a challenge. How do you respond to this? The exploration IoT on campus provides some examples of IoT pilots conducted in the Netherlands and elsewhere and gives an overview of the options for network protocols and IoT data platforms.