Hello Simone Fischer-Hübner, Professor in Computer Science! There's a lot going on right now in your field, cybersecurity. The Knowledge Foundation recently granted funding to a Swedish Industrial Graduate School on Cybersecurity (SIGS-CyberSec) where you will hold the wheel. Congratulations! Can you tell us more about what it will entail?
– The SIGS-CyberSec graduate school will start in spring 2023, and is a collaboration between Karlstad University, Blekinge Institute of Technology, Swedish Defence University and Örebro University. Together, the universities have built up excellent and internationally leading research profiles and courses in different and complementary areas of specialisation in cyber security for more than two decades. The first intake of SIGS-CyberSec will include eight PhD students, each of whom will be associated with a company in the industry, including Assemblin AB and KnowIt. The PhD positions will be advertised in the spring. Karlstad University is the coordinator of the graduate school, for which I, Leonardo Martucci and Eva Glavenius are responsible.
And more things are happening; 15th of December Karlstad University hosted a workshop day within the Cybercampus Sweden initiative, what is this?
– We gathered about 40 cybersecurity researchers, cybersecurity professionals from industry, government and policy makers.
– Several Swedish entities such as authorities, companies and academia share responsibility for Swedish cyber defence. This responsibility includes not only today's digital infrastructure, but also research, innovation and education in cybersecurity. There is a need for a national centre for this, where Swedish universities and research institutes collaborate with both authorities and the private sector.
– By bringing together several universities and institutes, with complementing expertise in cybersecurity, it will be easier to respond to the rapid developments and closing the skills gap in the cybersecurity field in Sweden.
– Cybercampus Sweden complements other existing initiatives. A National Cybersecurity Centre has been set up to coordinate government agencies and the private sector. The Swedish Civil Contingencies Agency hosts NCC-SE, The Swedish National Coordination Centre for cybersecurity research and innovation, which is a national coordination centre linked to the European Cyber Security Competence Centre, ECCC. RISE and Vinnova have set up CyberNode, an innovation node for the cybersecurity industry. Complementing these coordination initiatives, Cybercampus Sweden will focus on conducting research, education and innovation that supports the other sectors. I am a member of the steering board of the Cybernode and part of the planning group for the Cybercampus, so Karlstad university has a very active role in this new cybersecurity landscape.
A series of workshops will develop the forms of collaboration within Cybercampus Sweden. During the workshop in Karlstad, the focus was on international visibility, participation in EU projects, and how to offer advice to policy makers and decision makers.
