This week, the Kubus team attended Networkshop 2026 held at Nottingham University, one of the UK’s leading events for networking, cybersecurity and digital infrastructure professionals across the education and research sectors.
Throughout the event, we had discussions around challenges, upcoming legislation changes and market trends with IT professionals across higher education institutions including those from research arms. While each have their own requirements, several common themes emerged from our conversations:
Managing increasingly complex network environments
Strengthening cybersecurity without adding operational burden
Improving visibility across distributed infrastructure
Supporting hybrid learning and working environments
Delivering more with constrained budgets and resources
These discussions highlighted the continued pressure on IT and estates teams to balance innovation, security and operational efficiency while ensuring a reliable experience for students, staff and researchers.
One of the most common topics discussed at Networkshop was the need for greater visibility and control across network infrastructure.
As networks continue to expand and support more connected devices, cloud applications and digital services, organisations are looking for ways to reduce complexity and gain actionable insights into performance, security and user experience.
Automation also featured heavily in conversations, with many institutions exploring how they can reduce manual processes, accelerate troubleshooting and free up valuable resources to focus on strategic initiatives.
Cybersecurity remains a key priority across the sector, particularly as institutions face increasingly sophisticated threats while supporting open and collaborative environments for learning and socialising.
The importance of integrated solutions, that provide both visibility and protection was also a recurring theme throughout the event.
From discussing network modernisation projects, cybersecurity strategies to operational challenges, attendees openly shared insights, successes and lessons learned.
For our team present throughout the event, these discussions reinforced the importance of collaboration and the value of bringing together professionals facing similar challenges.
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