Policy & Ethicsmicrosoft 365higher educationmicrosoftdigital sovereignty
Utrecht University Challenges Microsoft Cloud Dependency
6.0
A working group at Utrecht University is assessing whether the institution can sever ties with Microsoft, prompted by concerns over digital sovereignty, GDPR and the U.S. CLOUD Act. The review highlights deep technical entanglement across Azure Active Directory, Teams and SharePoint, SURF negotiations, and pilot tests of alternatives like Nextcloud. The inquiry may reshape Dutch and European research data governance.
Key Points
- 1Examines vendor lock-in across Microsoft 365, Azure Active Directory, Teams, SharePoint and institutional identity systems
- 2Highlights GDPR and U.S. CLOUD Act tensions that create legal exposure for European research and student data
- 3Prompts pilots of Nextcloud and open-source stacks, increasing on-prem IT costs and interoperability challenges
Scoring Rationale
Notable regional industry shift, but limited by unilateral reporting and lack of definitive institutional exit decision.
Sources
Public references used for this report.
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