IT at the academic level: the CIO of KU Leuven has his say

leen van rentergem cio ku leuven

At KU Leuven, IT is at the service of education and research, as well as day-to-day policy making. How does our country’s oldest university evolve with the latest technological developments? CIO Leen Van Rentergem testifies.

With the official birth year of 1425, Catholic University Leuven can proudly call itself the oldest university in our country, and even one of the oldest in the world. When the university opened its doors, printing would be 130 years away. Today, to put it mildly, the world looks completely different. CIO Leen Van Rentergem has to make sure the university keeps up with the latest technologies.

ITdaily: What does the IT environment you are responsible for look like?

Van Rentergem: “Besides the university, KU Leuven is also part of the KU Leuven Association. This represents almost 120,000 students and 23,000 staff members. Our IT environment can be divided into two branches. On the one hand, there is IT for classic business operations, such as ERP, communication tools, productivity and security. In addition, I oversee the technology we need for teaching and research purposes, such as HPC and data warehouses.”

“We manage two of our own data centers. A fiber network, which was recently renewed, connects the buildings. On the campuses, we have a private network and an IoT network for research. In principle, we work separately from UZ Leuven, but where possible the basic infrastructure is shared.”

What are your top priorities right now?

Van Rentergem: “I think these are in line with the classic concerns of the CIO. Green IT is an important concern for us: there is an increasing need for IT and data, how do we provide that in a responsible and green way? Security, of course, is also something everyone is concerned about. Furthermore, we must ensure good contracts that are adapted to our needs. Contracts have to be sufficiently flexible, but it’s getting played harder and harder.”

“As a CIO, you also have to accept the concerns of the organization. Within our sector, these are often a lot more complex. Education has to be more and more flexible. Not only in terms of time, but education is also becoming less dependent on the campus. Students are taking classes at their own pace and through more flexible pathways.”

“IT has to provide tremendous support here because there will not necessarily be more teachers. Teaching will continue to automate on a day-to-day basis, but in a human way. It should also not feel alienating in a context where more digital tools are used.”

“In terms of research, open science is an important idea. This means that research should be transparent and replicable. Research data should be well managed: we apply the principle as open as possible, as closed as needed. Data is opened where possible, but also sufficiently protected when necessary. It is our job to organize that and relieve researchers.”

Does the rest of the organization sufficiently understand those challenges? Is everyone on the same page?

Van Rentergem: “A few years ago we started a new IT governance structure to have more communication with the business level. Every ten weeks we sit down with the business to discuss priorities. Four times a year we meet with the heads of management to hear questions and assess the IT impact. It has taken time to be on the same wavelength, but now there is direct communication that happens in an open atmosphere.”

Education must automate, but in a human way. It should not feel alienating.

Leen Van Rentergem, CIO KU Leuven

Does your department have access to sufficient resources and people to complete those challenges?

Van Rentergem: “It is common knowledge that education works with a ‘closed envelope.’ Resources are not indexed or very limited. Resources are under pressure and this is shifting to IT. This makes it tough to combine new challenges with keeping the IT environment healthy. It is a matter of thinking carefully about what to keep straight and also daring to discard things.

“The needs are presented to the university administration in a timely manner and they are listened to. But we have to work in a context of limited resources. Also along human lines, it is often difficult to find the right profiles.”

Is the future of the IT environment in the cloud, on-premises or a combination?

Van Rentergem: “A combination. We have defined our own cloud strategy that is adjusted every year. We go to the cloud when it adds value to integrate better or makes collaboration with other universities easier.”

“We have our own data centers. This allows us to continue to consider on-prem, SAAS solutions aside. The pressure to go to the cloud is less because of our internal skills and because we buy well. We have high uptime so going to the cloud is not always an added value. Sensitive data from investigations we prefer to keep on-prem anyway, just as authentication and credentials where possible also prefer to stay on-prem. So a combination, but then with currently still a preference to continue working on-prem prem if possible.”

We are “as open as possible, as closed as needed. Data is opened up whenever possible, but also adequately protected when necessary.

Leen Van Rentergem, CIO KU Leuven

What impact do impending legislations such as NIS2 have on IT policies?

Van Rentergem: “We are following that up. NIS2 will have an impact because as a legal entity and educational institution, we fall under it. It’s not quite clear yet under which category exactly we fall, we’re figuring that out. Even apart from that, we are working on security. We will adopt the NIS2 framework as much as possible, but how to shape this in a decentralized organization and thus make IT processes auditable will be a challenge.”

How do you deal with the current AI hype?

Van Rentergem: “We look at AI in three areas: education, research and policy. In education and research, there are guidelines for the proper use of AI, which determine what can and cannot be done. The technology in itself is nothing new because AI has been used in scientific research for at least 15 years. In business management, we look primarily at AI models integrated into software, but also at how to implement the models themselves.”

“We will use AI only where it actually adds value to work more efficiently, smooth processes and facilitate 24/7 service. We first follow a checklist: where is the data, how is data used and what models has the tool been used with? Then a proof of concept follows and if it is net-positive, the broader implementation follows.”

“From the green IT story, I think we as a university need to keep a critical eye. AI is not the most ‘green’ technology. I believe in the potential of AI but only if it is deployed in the right place. We have to be careful not to overdo it and warming the earth even more when it doesn’t need to.”

Van Rentergem: “That’s in line with the priorities I cited earlier. AI is moving faster than light. I have a great personal interest in everything to do with green IT, how we build and implement our data centers in a responsible way and how to recover heat. There’s also the security aspect of AI: how are hackers exploiting it and how can we respond?”

“From my own environment, I also follow how we can deal with digital credentials in a European context. We exchange students with universities from other countries, but there is always a huge paperwork involved. For example, we could work with digital wallets into which students bring their acquired credentials. The technology is there, but it will be important to choose the right implementation where privacy by design is ingrained. We are following this closely, as this could become a crucial factor in enabling more flexible education.”


In the “CIO to Speak” section, we speak with CIOs about how they handle day-to-day IT policies and look at technology trends. View all interviews here.

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