As we begin a new year, it’s the perfect moment to look back at how OCRE 2024 has shaped cloud adoption across UK research and education since its launch last year.
OCRE 2024 officially launched on 3 February 2025, marking the third iteration of GÉANT’s cloud procurement frameworks and the second under the OCRE branding. Its origins trace back to the earlier GÉANT IaaS framework (2016–2020), which laid the foundations for coordinated, cost effective cloud procurement across Europe.
Delivering Meaningful Savings Across the Sector
Across the lifetime of the framework, from its earliest iteration through to OCRE 2024, institutions have collectively benefited from over £28M in savings, enabled by aggregated commercial terms and simplified, compliant procurement routes. These financial advantages continue to grow as more members transition and optimise under OCRE 2024.
These savings directly support strategic priorities such as research capacity, digital transformation, and improvements to teaching and learning environments.
A Smooth Transition From the OCRE Cloud Framework (OCRE 2020)
One of the major achievements of the past year has been the successful transition from OCRE 2020 to OCRE 2024. The majority of UK research and education institutions previously using OCRE 2020 have now moved their cloud workloads under OCRE 2024, gaining continuity, improved commercial terms, and access to a broader and more robust supplier ecosystem.
A Year of Strong Engagement and Clear Community Trends
Over the past year, OCRE 2024 has seen:
- Strong adoption from institutions transitioning from OCRE 2020
- Growing interest from members seeking improved procurement efficiency and cloud value
- Clear community‑driven trends in cloud usage for research computing, analytics, AI‑enabled workloads, storage, and collaboration
While OCRE does not publish detailed usage breakdowns in these areas, the trend is evident through institutional conversations, demand patterns, and member led requests.
Looking Ahead to 2026 and Beyond
With OCRE 2024 running until 2030, institutions can rely on long term stability as they continue their cloud journeys. Our priorities for the coming year include:
- Supporting institutions to optimise their cloud usage
- Expanding awareness of the full suite of cloud platforms and services
- Helping members maximise the savings and benefits the framework can deliver
- Building on the strong engagement and momentum achieved throughout 2025
As the sector continues to innovate and collaborate, OCRE 2024 will remain a key enabler, helping institutions access high quality cloud services in a simple, compliant, and cost effective way.
For more detailed information about the OCRE 2024 Framework, please contact Cloudframework@jisc.ac.uk, or visit OCRE cloud framework – Jisc.
