OREANDA-NEWS. March 26, 2010. Ashgabat hosts the fourth working meeting of the Executive Committee of the Central Asian Research and Education Network (CAREN) Project co-funded by the European Commission, which was launched in our country under the patronage of President Gurbanguly Berdimuhamedov in 2008.

CAREN is a continuation of the Virtual Silk Highway Project which enabled to connect 69 education and research institutions including 27 secondary schools to the national research and education network and provide them with free access to the Internet.

Enabling access to the global network opened up the vast opportunities for virtual communication, distance education, cooperation between scientists of neighbouring and remote countries, obtaining necessary information from the research and educational Internet resources, etc. At the current stage the executive committee conducts the working meetings under the aegis of the CAREN Project in each Central Asian country. The previous three were held in Almaty, Bishkek and Dushanbe which passed on the baton to Ashgabat.

The CAREN Project has three phases that provide for conducting the preparatory activities on a routine basis. These include market research, assessment of technical capabilities of research and education networks in the CAREN project partners, announcement of the tender, selection of the general operator and conclusion of the contract between DANTE, which operates and manages the CAREN Project, and the operator. The final project phase, which will cover the period from July 2010 to July 2012, provides for operating the network.

The major aim of the Ashgabat meeting is to identify the ways of providing direct links between the research and educational network of Turkmenistan and the European information network.