Imagine this: it’s rush hour in Amsterdam. The train arrives, the doors open, and people immediately start jostling to get on. At the same time, the passengers inside are trying to get off. But nobody waits, nobody cooperates. For a few seconds, total chaos reigns.

The curious thing is that everyone wants the same thing: to get on or off the train as quickly as possible. However, by acting solely in their own interests, they all hold each other up. Now imagine a different scene. People step aside, the passengers get off first, and then everyone gets on. The result? The train empties faster, fills up faster, and everyone gets where they want to go.

The same idea was the central theme of a debate on the future of digital infrastructure at the University of Amsterdam. Researchers argued that cooperation, not competition, is the key to creating a better digital world. Today, much of the digital world is based on competition. Organisations create their own platforms, databases and systems. Information is often stored separately, using different standards and formats. As a result, it can be difficult to find, share or reuse valuable knowledge. Researchers working on the future of digital infrastructure want to change this. Their vision is based on openness, accessibility and collaboration. Instead of isolated systems, they envisage an infrastructure that can be improved by everyone who uses it. As Anne Beaulieu explained, “open does not mean free”. Open systems still require resources, maintenance and investment. However, they are designed to benefit a wider community, rather than a small group of users.

The University of Amsterdam’s Open Science Programme, supported by the Research Data Hub, plays an important role in this effort. The programme brings together policies, technology and support services to help researchers make their data as FAIR as possible: findable, accessible, interoperable and reusable. This is important because, at present, not everyone has equal access to knowledge. Some research results are difficult to find. Metadata can be inconsistent. Valuable information may exist but remain hidden within complex systems. To address these challenges, initiatives such as the Global Open Access Commitment are promoting a more collaborative approach. These movements seek to create infrastructures that support diverse users and different forms of knowledge. The aim is to build systems that are not controlled from the top down, but are shaped by the people who use them.

Technology will also play an important role. Today, researchers manually input data into many databases. In the future, automation and artificial intelligence could help organise information, generate metadata and even facilitate data analysis. Imagine if, at a train station, a smart system automatically guided passengers towards the least crowded platforms. The process would be smoother and more efficient for everyone. Similarly, AI could help researchers navigate ever-increasing amounts of information.

As Ava Irani argued, universities should look beyond economic benefits. Society invests in universities because knowledge itself creates value. “The UvA must deliver a different kind of return: the return on knowledge.”

Ultimately, the future of digital infrastructure is not just a technological challenge, but also a social one. The question is whether institutions will continue to jostle against one another like passengers rushing through the doors of a crowded train, or whether they will opt for cooperation. This brings us back to the question posed by Alfons Hoekstra: "Is the UvA ready for the future?” The answer may depend on whether cooperation becomes the guiding principle of the future of digital infrastructure.