About Us
Our History and The Future
The Malawi Research and Education Network (MAREN) is Malawi’s own NREN and is recognised as such by the Government of Malawi through the Ministry of Education. It was founded in 2005 by the only two public Universities then namely the University of Malawi and the Mzuzu University. This was after the two universities had seen tremendous growth in electronic resources but a big connectivity gap to access the e-resources.
The precursor to MAREN was the VSAT network at four University campuses of Chancellor College, College of Medicine, Mzuzu University and Bunda College of Agriculture (a College under the University of Malawi,now under the Lilongwe University of Agriculture and Natural Resources) installed by the Malawi Libraries and Information Consortium.
Mission
To provide secure, reliable, high speed and affordable connectivity for research and education institutions facilitating collaborative research, knowledge creation and sharing of resources.
Vision
The vibrant research and education network harnessing innovative technologies for collaboration and sharing of resources.
Your Needs. Our Mandate
Advanced Network Services
The mandate of the Malawi Research and Education Network (MAREN) is to provide advanced network and network-enabled services to the research and education sectors in Malawi.
MAREN is recognized by the Malawi Government as its National Research and Education Network (NREN).
Objectives
- To provide high-speed, cost-effective, reliable, secure and sustainable interconnectivity services to post-secondary and research institutions including teaching hospitals;
- To provide a platform for the development and use of advanced network facilities and services by the post-secondary Education and Research Communities in Malawi;
- To facilitate access to national and international electronic resources not readily accessible because of bandwidth and hardware constraints and optimise the efforts of researchers to create, manage, discover and disseminate knowledge;
- To provide state of the art cyber-infrastructure to support the development, sharing and delivery of innovative online education content and applications nationally and internationally and the development of learning and research communities across Malawi;
- To facilitate collaboration of Universities and other institutions of post-secondary education duly registered with a State department or agency and Research Institutions recognised by the Government of Malawi for purposes of, on a non-profit basis, securing and providing electronic communications network services generally, including the benefit of new developments, resources and facilities in information and communications technology, for thebenefit of the Universities and other institutions of post-secondary education and Research Institutions in Malawi;
- To provide a platform for researchers in Malawi to participate in collaborative research and development projects on the international stage and access to global academic and research cyber resources;
- To promote collaboration of Library Information Systems that allow institutions to easily digitize and share collections;
- To facilitate access to affordable hardware, software, online resources and bandwidth through collaboration with members for purposes of achieving stronger negotiating positions and securing better terms for members of MAREN when dealing with suppliers of hardware, software, online resources and bandwidth;
- To contribute to enhancement of cybersecurity in member institutions;
- To contribute to enhancement of cybersecurity in member institutions;
- To contribute to advancement of Information and Communication Technologies in Malawi and beyond through Research and Development; and
- To provide technical support and knowledge transfer on ICT related matters to member institutions;
