Faculty of Informatics leading the EU-funded project in the field of cybersecurity
Selected out of 102 applications (with a success rate of 9.8%), the Cyber-security Excellence Hub in Estonia and South Moravia (shortened CHESS) brings together the best teams from both regions to support European Union's safe transition to a digital society.
In this EU-funded project, South Moravia, a major Czech ICT powerhouse in industry and education, with a strong focus on cyber-security, will closely collaborate with Estonia, which is among the most advanced digital societies globally, with an outstanding e-government infrastructure. The four-year project is implemented at the Faculty of Informatics, which hosts several research teams contributing to scientific advances in cybersecurity.
On January 26-27, the kick-off meeting at the Faculty of Informatics brought the CHESS community together in-person for the first time. "CHESS intends to leverage local and regional resources to support the development and sustainability of innovation ecosystems in the areas of cyber-security. We have universities, large and small companies, and governmental information security agencies on board," explains Prof. Vashek Matyas, the CHESS project Coordinator.
The CHESS project will develop a joint cross-border cyber-security research and innovation strategy focusing on six challenge areas: Internet of secure things, Security certification, Verification of trustworthy software, Security preservation in blockchain, Post-quantum cryptography, and Human-centric aspects of cyber-security. The strategy development will be aided by the implementation of pilot projects that will reinforce cross-regional collaboration, engage regional innovation ecosystems and build evidence for future projects.
Training and knowledge transfer will remove gaps in skills and expertise in the regions. Dedicated task forces will ensure the sustainability of CHESS by integration with regional, national, and European Union-level strategies and funding programmes. "To exploit the project outputs, especially the pilot project results, CHESS will link researchers and innovators with entrepreneurship training and business consultancy services available in Estonia and South Moravia", says Prof. Raimundas Matulevičius, Professor of Information Security, University of Tartu.
In the end, CHESS will have a positive effect on participating institutions, increasing their visibility, attractiveness, and potential to generate innovative and usable research results. On top of that, CHESS will create a unique network of interactions beyond its consortium, connecting the strengths of South Moravia (certification, human-centric research) and Estonia (blockchain, post-quantum cryptography, e-government) to facilitate a secure transition to full-scale digital societies.
The CHESS consortium consists of nine partners and three associated partners
- Masaryk University (Czechia),
- University of Tartu (Estonia),
- Brno University of Technology (Czechia),
- Tallinn University of Technology (Estonia),
- Cybernetica AS (Estonia),
- Red Hat (Czechia),
- Guardtime (Estonia),
- Estonian Information System Authority (Estonia),
- CyberSecurity Hub (Czechia),
- National Cyber and Information Security Agency, associated partner (Czechia),
- South Moravian Innovation Centre, associated partner (Czechia),
- Estonian Information Security Association, associated partner (Estonia).
Funded by the European Union under Grant Agreement No. 101087529. Views and opinions expressed are however those of the author(s) only and do not necessarily reflect those of the European Union or European Research Executive Agency. Neither the European Union nor the granting authority can be held responsible for them.
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