Periodic Reporting for period 4 - KIOS CoE (KIOS Research and Innovation Centre of Excellence)
Okres sprawozdawczy: 2020-12-01 do 2022-05-31
Strategic objectives: Grow and enhance the human resources capacity of the KIOS CoE;Build the infrastructure capacity of the KIOS CoE; Expand the scope of research excellence in monitoring, control, management and security of critical infrastructure systems ; Pioneer high-impact innovation and entrepreneurship in Critical Infrastructure Systems applications ;Achieve long-term sustainability of the KIOS CoE ; Contribute towards the transformation of the research and innovation culture of Cyprus ; Establish an expanded and versatile organisational structure to support the KIOS CoE activities.
Organizational Transformation: Currently, KIOS CoE is the only research unit at the University of Cyprus that operates in this way and as a Center of Excellence.The KIOS CoE has established decision making structures, particularly in the areas of strategic planning and prioritising, recruitment and hiring, management of resources, and financing ( its own electoral body for hiring new personnel). Furthermore, a layer of administration has been removed enabling decisions to be taken by the KIOS Executive Committee.
During the first project period, the Center accomplished to hire administrative and research personnel of high caliber, enriching its organizational structure with highly qualified personnel (administrators, Communication Manager, Innovation Hub Manager), top class researchers (post-doctoral researchers and Ph.D. students), as well as software developers to transform the research results to tools that can be used in practice by the Center’s industrial partners. Currently, the Center employs 87 researchers and 17 faculty members (at various ranks/levels). At the KIOS CoE spoke there are a further 4 researchers, 5 Faculty members and 3 administrators supporting the project.
Education and Training: One of the most important highlights is the development of the post-graduate program “Master of Science in Intelligent Critical Infrastructure Systems”, in collaboration with the advanced partner, Imperial College London. The program has been evaluated by an international expert evaluation committee and has been approved with high accolades from the Cyprus Agency of Quality Assurance and Accreditation in Higher Education. The approval is a pre-requisite for new degree programs in Cyprus. The program will admit its first students in September 2019 and will run in the English language.
Innovation Hub (IH): KIOS CoE strives to create a regional research and innovation ecosystem in the area of ICT, resulting in major economic and societal benefits for Cyprus and Europe as a whole, by cultivating a vibrant research and innovation cluster in high technology areas linking universities, technology companies and end users, government agencies, as well as enterprise support companies. A major pillar of KIOS comprises the KIOS Innovation Hub, which involves the significant expansion of the Center’s activities in the areas of innovation and technology transfer. The IH was established, hiring key personnel and signing agreements with six governmental and private organisations.
Critical Infrastructure Systems Testbeds:As one of the pillars of the KIOS CoE, the Testbeds serve several objectives that contribute towards achieving excellence in both Research and Innovation, and are expected to contribute significantly towards the sustainability of the KIOS CoE. Five main testbeds are being developed, each one of which will be related to one of the main application areas of KIOS, namely power systems, water networks, transportation systems, water networks and cyber-physical system security.For each individual testbed, detailed functional requirements, user and system-level require-ments, and front-end specifications have been developed. Furthermore, the testbed implementation has also been initiated. For example, the power systems testbed is already partly implemented in the KIOS CoE laboratory, while the procurement process for part of the systems equipment has been completed. A task force is also working on the cyber-physical system security testbed that is expected to be a horizontal testbed linking all the critical infrastructure testbeds.
Open Knowledge: To initiate the Open Knowledge pillar, an Open Access Committee (OAC) has been formed and has created the KIOS CoE Open Knowledge Portal on the Zenodo research data depository, established procedures and trained researchers to upload entries (e.g. publications, research data, software) on Zenodo.