News: Moldova State University in the digital transformation journey

Moldova State University in the digital transformation journey

Interview with Sergiu Corlat, Vice-Rector for digitalisation at Moldova State University (MSU)

As the Republic of Moldova has chosen the European path, this commitment brings both opportunities and responsibilities regarding key EU directives and digital policies that will define the competitiveness of the education and research sector in the coming years. MSU, being the largest university in the country, is among the leaders in higher education and research in the Republic of Moldova. By modernizing and expanding its digital infrastructure, MSU continues its steady progress toward innovation and academic excellence.

How did the digital transformation at the MSU start? What were the main challenges?

When the new team of our rector, Dr. Igor Sharov, joined the university at the beginning of 2021, we found a local network with an outdated structure: a low-transfer-capacity network, with a few isolated Wi-Fi zones for a limited number of connections. These were usually in some small offices or computer labs. It was a major challenge for the IT Department team to change the situation.

This period coincided with the reorganization of higher education in the Republic of Moldova and the need to connect the Cantemir campus (the former Dimitrie Cantemir State University merged with USM).

What were the steps in developing the university network?

In 2022, we began by establishing a fiber optic loop at the main campus that connected all campus buildings. This loop served as the basis for a new generation network at our university, designed to have a flexible capacity of 1-10 Gigabits.

In the next stage, we created a continuous Wi-Fi zone in the Сentral Building and implemented the eduroam service. Now, we have an eduroam connection everywhere: we have Wi-Fi wherever we are, wherever we go. Connection quality remains consistent regardless of the number of users — we can support up to 25,000 simultaneous connections.

The next step was to connect Building 4 of the real sciences faculties. This was achieved — and we obtained a continuous Wi-Fi zone in both buildings, with the same range of services.

Further, the process of reorganizing higher education continued with the MSU absorption of research institutes of the Academy of Sciences of Moldova. We became a large organization with a complex structure. More than 10 research institutes joined the university; however, their infrastructure was outdated and poorly developed. So, the challenge was not only to continue modernizing the university network, but also to create better conditions for MSU’s research institutes. The connection between the main campus and the Cantemir campus (where some research institutes are located) was established with the help of RENAM, our main Internet provider at that time. It was a qualitative leap for the university infrastructure.

In 2024, we returned to the main campus and connected Building 3 of the humanities faculties.

What is the current focus of your work in developing digital infrastructure?

At present, we have only one building on our main campus that is not yet connected — Building 2 of the Faculty of Law. Modernizing the network in this building is one of the objectives proposed for achievement within the World Bank-funded project “Higher Education in Moldova”. The network modernization activities are expected to be completed in the first half of 2026. Once we finish, we will have continuous Wi-Fi coverage for all buildings on the main campus.

The problem of connecting a large number of locations cannot be solved without a reliable partner. At this moment, that partner is RENAM, which is helping us with this interconnection.

In 2025, the main challenge in expanding digital communications services was connecting the Institute of Physical Education and Sport, which has recently become part of MSU, to the university network. It so happened that the RENAM Association had already built a data transport network between all higher education institutions located in the Chișinău municipality. All that remained to do was to connect the local network to the RENAM data transport backbone.

In May 2024, the new University Data Centre was opened. What is it used for?

The creation of a new University Data Centre was a crucial achievement in covering the scientific and educational activities of MSU. It is powerful enough to meet all the educational and communication needs of students, lecturers, and researchers. I can now say that we have the most powerful Data Centre of all universities in Moldova. The computing capabilities of the Data Centre are constantly growing, both in terms of computing power, storage capacities and system protection.

In August 2024, we hosted the European Junior Olympiad in Informatics (EJOI 2024). The main challenge for our Data Centre was to evaluate all the solutions from all participants in this international event in real time. We solved this issue without any contestations or delays. More than 100 concurrent users from 26 countries, 3 competition sessions, 1 training session, 1 practical session, 2 days of competition — and everything went well.

What is the current use of the eduroam service, provided by RENAM, and what other services could be useful for MSU?

Of course, eduroam is RENAM’s most successful service from our perspective. We have a lot of mobility for students and university staff. We have many contacts with universities in Europe and beyond. And wherever we go or whoever comes here, we are connected to the Internet through eduroam. This is the main service we use from RENAM.

There are many Internet providers, but the Internet is not the main service now. We need connections with higher education institutions. We need connections with research institutes in order to be successful in the future. I hope that our researchers will not only use our local resources, our University Data Centre, our databases, applications, and servers, but will also share and access the resources and services provided by the pan-European academic network GÉANT.

We are now working with RENAM to implement the eduGAIN service to provide federated access for MSU users to national and European services and information resources for the global research and education community. Also, with eduGAIN authentication, the Open Science services of the EOSC EU Node will be closer, just a click away.

How do you see the digital transformation of MSU into a “university of the future” moving forward?

Creating a network that connects all MSU entities forms the basis of modernisation. The next step is to expand the number of services for students, lecturers, and researchers by providing access to the full range of opportunities available through GÉANT. The success of this stage will depend largely not on technical potential, but on human potential — that of the research and education community in the Republic of Moldova.