CENIC research education and cultural community (web)
Citation
Corporation for Education Network Initiatives in California (CENIC). “Research, education, and cultural institutions and CENIC.” Web page, date not stated. https://cenic.org/community/research-ed-cultural. Read 2026-11-10.
Bottom line
- CENIC connects 14 research organizations, 14 private educational institutions and 6 scientific and cultural institutions to the California Research and Education Network (CalREN).
- These institutions connect “behind a Charter Associate”. CalREN peers with “nearly 100 peers”, AWS and other public clouds among them, and CENIC does not charge “on a per-bit basis”.
Background
CENIC runs CalREN, the research and education network of California. This page lists the institutions outside the public education systems that connect to CalREN. It names each one with a link, in three groups.
Key claims
- “The organizations listed below are sponsored by, collaborate with, and connect to CENIC’s California Research and Education Network (CalREN) behind a Charter Associate.” (section “CENIC is committed to meeting ambitious needs”)
- “Several CENIC Charter Associates interact with these organizations, and many partner with one or more of them for research and education purposes, including using their resources to train faculty members, staff, and students.” (same section)
- “CalREN’s settlement-free peering services (with nearly 100 peers) provide high-speed access to many data-intensive sites frequented by researchers, students, and educators, such as AWS and other public clouds, as well as to other research and education networks around the world.” (Did you know: Cloud Connectivity and Content Services)
- “CENIC does not charge any members on a per-bit basis.” (Did you know: Unlimited Broadband Usage)
- “CENIC represents the networking needs of California’s entire K-20 research and education community, enabling bulk purchasing power through our economies of scale that results in deeply discounted pricing for network hardware and software that would never be available to an individual institution purchasing these on its own.” (Did you know: Substantial Discounts on Circuits and Equipment)
Evidence and method
The organization’s own page. It lists institutions and states CENIC’s services. It gives no prices, no traffic data and no dates of connection.
The research organizations include NASA Ames Research Center and the NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory. They also include the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), the Salk Institute, Scripps Research and SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory. The scientific and cultural group includes the California Academy of Sciences, the Exploratorium, the Getty, the International Computer Science Institute and the Internet Archive.
Limits
The page does not say which Charter Associate sponsors each institution. Some listed institutions are outside California (Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory, The Jackson Laboratory, Northeastern University); the page does not say which site connects. The link for “Carnegie Mellon Silicon Valley” goes to the Art Center College of Design site.