Computer Science presented to the Värmland IT industry

At the DigIT Värmland 2015 conference, Computer Science at Karlstad University was elected Digital Rocket of the Year for its research in the areas of Computer Networking, and Privacy and Security, which has expanded dramatically. In 2014, Computer Science was assessed to be one of two excellent research groups at Karlstad University. In the same year, a new research profile, HITS, was initiated together with a number of companies with funding from the Knowledge Foundation.
- In the last two years we have recruited around 30 new staff members. Our research environment consist of expert researchers from the whole world, says Anna Brunström. Around 15-20 nationalities are represented in our operations.
In 2015, Computer Science was involved in launching five international cooperation projects in the EU framework programme for research and innovation, Horizon 2020. One of the projects is MONROE.

- Monroe is a European cooperation project with actors from academia and industry, which is typical of EU funded projects, says Anna Brunström. Seven partners from Sweden, Norway, Spain and Italy participates in the project.
The project aims to design, build and operate an open platform to measure and understand how the quality of mobile broadband networks is perceived by end users. 150 mobile nodes and 100 stationary nodes will be deployed at different places in the four countries. Each node will be connected to three mobile broadband operators and also to WiFi where available.
- Today, there is no good infrastructure to test mobile broadband, which is important to test as it is often less stable than stationary broadband, says Anna Brunström. In Värmland, we will place 50 mobile nodes and 10 stationary nodes. The mobile nodes will be placed on busses and trains, around 30 with Värmlandstrafik and around 20 with Karlstadbuss. 
During this spring, the focus is on getting the infrastructure in place and an Open Call has been announced to find external users who would like to explore the infrastructure for research and innovation projects. External actors have had the opportunity to apply and the proposals selected will have access to the infrastructure and get financial support.
- This is a resource for developing mobile networks and services, and it also provides an opportunity to perform exciting student projects, said Anna Brunström. Student projects are a very good way for companies to have opportunities to cooperate with the university.