On Thursday 15 October, SURF is bringing together researchers from different scientific disciplines for a one-day Fiber Optic Sensing Workshop in Utrecht.

We are particularly keen to connect with researchers whose work could benefit from using existing fiber infrastructure as a distributed sensing instrument — for example in geophysics, seismology, marine science, environmental and climate research, civil engineering, and related fields.

The focus of the workshop is very much on the science and the research use cases. What can technologies such as Distributed Acoustic Sensing (DAS) make possible? What kinds of measurements, coverage and data could be valuable to different disciplines? And what would researchers need from fiber sensing infrastructure if we want to move from individual experiments towards more structural and scalable research capabilities?

The day will combine an introduction to the technology with international and Dutch research examples, ongoing projects, discussion across scientific domains, and short pitches from researchers who would like to explore or share a potential fiber sensing use case.

We will also have a live demonstration with a DAS unit and look at the wider research landscape around fiber sensing, including funding opportunities, consortia and collaboration, and how SURF’s data and compute infrastructure could support this type of research.

Previous experience with fiber sensing is not required. We are just as interested in researchers who are curious whether this could provide a useful new source of data for their work.

If this sounds relevant to your research — or to someone in your research network — please have a look and feel free to share.

Fiber Optic Sensing Workshop: The Network as a Research Instrument
Date: 15 October 2026
Place: Utrecht, the Netherlands
Language: English

To sign up, please use the registration tool under this link: