higher education
Serving Public Universities, Private Colleges & Community Colleges
KeystoneREN is a collaborative community of education, healthcare, economic development, libraries, government and public media organizations that utilize the statewide high-performance Research and Education Network. By offering essential services and exceptional client support, KeystoneREN will help your institution achieve its mission and goals through the ongoing discovery, application and transfer of new network technologies. KeystoneREN provides access to connectivity, content, and collaboration.
KeystoneREN believes in the strength of a vibrant, collaborative educational community that can work with leading technology firms to address challenges of common interest for the common good. By connecting organizations, building relationships and sharing services, institutions of higher education can achieve far more together than they can alone.
Why Higher Education Loves KeystoneREN
- Assures campuses have a world class advanced network connection that enables services ranging from connecting to Internet2 to peering with top cloud providers and services.
- Connects entities for teaching, research and development-based collaboration.
- Provides an opportunity to aggregate services for clients at affordable costs.
- Provides access to affordable technology and services.
- Facilitates professional development and helps professors and students to engage in professional learning communities and access new educational resources such as curriculum cadres and educational portals.
Making the Difference in Research & Education
- Enables the exchange of large volumes of data quickly and provides immediate, on demand solutions for extreme data demands.
- Provides access to specialized national and international resources, such as world-class equipment and specialized data sets.
- Enables access to high performance computing at partner institutions.
- Helps professors collaborate more on research and education projects over a distance, such as international collaboration and science discovery.
KeystoneREN’s High Speed High Capacity Network
The statewide KeystoneREN network provides next generation network connectivity and services to Higher Education organizations across Pennsylvania and the mid-atlantic region. It enables value-added services like Ultra (4K) high-definition (UHD) video, telepresence or videoconferencing, and data sharing. The collaborative environment also provides opportunities for Higher Education institutions to share best practices, content and programs across the network and save costs using KMEX, the KeystoneREN Member Exchange and take advantage of savings on essential cloud connectivity through Internet2 Cloud Connect and network services through the Internet2 NET+ offerings.
Recent Events/Presentations in the Community
KeystoneREN presented at Research Computing at Smaller Institutions on June 2, 2025
KeystoneREN presented at Consortium for Liberal Arts Colleges on June 10, 2025
what our higher education clients are saying:
Mark Henderson, CIO, University of Pittsburgh
“We’re delighted to join forces with KeystoneREN, a collaboration that ensures reliable connectivity with scalable infrastructure that’s crucial for the University’s ongoing digital transformation. This change reflects our commitment to fiscal responsibility, resulting in $75,000 of annual cost savings, while enabling the University to continue advancing that it’s possible at Pitt.
David Horton, VP for IT and CIO, Penn State University
“Penn State is excited to bring this 100G connection in-state and further the partnership with KeystoneREN. Our research enterprise reached a record $1.34 billion in fiscal year 2023-24. Creating efficiencies to support this growing source of innovation, while reducing costs and adding performance, is integral to the University’s success and mission.”
Interested in accessing these services or seeing how KeystoneREN can help your public, private, or community college institution of higher education? Contact us at [email protected] for more information or or call 717. 963.7490 Ext. 2 to speak to a KeystoneREN network support specialist to help.
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