University of Novi Sad (UNS), Serbia – P1, project coordinator
Faculty of organization and informatics (FOI), University of Zagreb, Croatia – P2
Budapest University of Technology and Economics (BME), Hungary – P3
Polytechnic University of Milano (Polimi), Italy – P4
University of Belgrade (UB), Serbia – P5
University of Niš (UNI), Serbia – P6
Schneider Electric DMS NS Llc (SEDMS), Novi Sad, Serbia – P7 (changed status to Associate partner)
Unicom Telecom Ltd (UT), Belgrade, Serbia – P8
Subotica Tech – College of Applied Sciences (VTS), Serbia – P9
Innovation Center Of The University Of Niš Ltd (ICUN), Serbia – P10
Asociated Partners
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University of Novi Sad (UNS), Serbia – P1, project coordinator
The University of Novi Sad was founded in 1960. It is the only state university in the Autonomous Province of Vojvodina (the Northernmost region of the Republic of Serbia), and consists of 14 faculties and 2 research & development institutes. The UNS has more than 50,000 students, 5,000 teaching and non-teaching staff, as well as 300 study programmes at all three academic cycles. UNS participates in both educational and research projects (ERASMUS +, TEMPUS, HORIZON 2020, FP7, EUREKA, COST, IPA, etc), including a prestigious project Advanced Technologies in Sustainable Agriculture and Food Security (ANTARES) as the first teaming project within HORIZON 2020 in the region, initiated by BioSense research group.
The Faculty of Technical Sciences (FTN) is the largest faculty at the UNS with more than 10,000 students and 1,000 employees. FTN is organized into 13 departments, which perform research and higher education activities in different engineering domains, e.g. traffic-, telecommunication- and civil engineering, computer science, applied software engineering, etc.
Information Security Services education is limited to three subjects at the FTN, which focus on basic information security principles, cryptography, industrial control system security and security in e-business systems.
Role in the project: P1 will coordinate the project and will be responsible for the management of the consortium (work package WP7). Apart from WP7, P1 will also lead work packages WP1 and WP2. P1 will lead the preparation phase of the project (WP1) in close cooperation with all the other members of the consortium. P1 will lead the Course Development (WP2) work package and participate in the creation of 5 new information security courses. P1 will participate in the Laboratory Development (WP3) and Education Program Development (WP4) work packages. In WP4 it will implement a new MSc education program. P1 will provide inputs to the Quality Plan (WP5) and Dissemination & Exploitation (WP6) work packages.
P1 has significant experience in successfully executing Tempus and Erasmus projects. The project core team possesses the capacity to implement the goals of the project. The coordinator of the P1 team (prof. Lendak) has significant project management experience.
Faculty of organization and informatics (FOI), University of Zagreb, Croatia – P2
The University of Zagreb was founded in 1669 and it is the oldest Croatian university and the oldest university in South East Europe. The University of Zagreb offers education and research in all scientific fields (arts, biomedicine, biotechnology, engineering, humanities, natural sciences and social sciences) and a broad spectrum of courses at all study levels, from undergraduate to postgraduate. With 29 Faculties, 3 Art Academies and the University Centre for Croatian Studies it is the flagship educational institution in the country, a place where more than 7900 teachers and 72480 students develop knowledge and acquire skills. The University of Zagreb is also the leader among Croatia’s universities in regard to post-graduate studies. Over 12,500 students have enrolled into the University’s specialist postgraduate programs since they were established. Furthermore, seventy percent of all students enrolled in doctorate programs in Croatia in 2014 come from our University. Since September 2014, 915 doctoral degrees in arts and sciences were awarded. The University excels not only in teaching, but also in research, contributing with over 50 percent to the annual research output in Croatia and 80 percent of scientific productivity of all Croatian universities.
The Faculty of Organization and Informatics (FOI) is one of the constituent units of the University of Zagreb. Established in 1962, it is an institution that reaches back more than half a century, which is a comparably long tradition when modern technologies studies are concerned. Over the decades, FOI has been providing education to future experts in the field of information sciences and technologies, economics, organization, communication and other related fields. All the necessary infrastructure for educational and research purposes is provided within our two buildings including: well-equipped computer rooms, videoconferencing facilities, e-learning system, as well as a modern library and reading room.
Role in the project: P2 co-leads the Laboratory Development Plan creation with P3. Provides laboratory and course development trainings to P5 and P6. Collaborates in curriculum development in P2 key areas of expertise, e.g. digital forensics, Internet of Things. P2 are regional leaders in the domain of Digital Forensics. This key expertise will be transferred to the HEIs in Serbia, mainly to P5 and P6, and utilized in both laboratory and course development. P2 already successfully cooperates with P5 by providing guest lectures at P5. P2 will organize one Steering Committee meeting and take part in all SC meetings. P2 will take part in Quality Board meetings as well.
Budapest University of Technology and Economics (BME), Hungary – P3
The Budapest University of Technology and Economics (BME) is the largest and most reputed engineering school in Hungary. It consists of about 110 departments and institutes organized into 8 faculties, and it has more than 20000 students and 1500 faculty members and research staff. Within BME, the project will be associated with the Laboratory of Cryptography and System Security (CrySyS Lab). The laboratory is focused on security of cyber-physical systems, including security of Industrial Automation and Control Systems and security for modern vehicles. CrySyS Lab members also have a strong background and 15+ years of experience in developing curricula and performing teaching activities in the following fields: IT security basics, Network Security, Computer security, Applied cryptography, Secure Software Development, and Economics of security and privacy.
The laboratory was involved in EU FP6, FP7, Artemis, EIT ICT Labs projects, as well as projects funded by Hungarian funding agencies. The faculty members of the CrySyS Lab also perform consulting services in the field of IT security on a regular basis, including consulting on cyber security for the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), the Hungarian Atomic Energy Agency (HAEA), and various Hungarian government organizations.
The most visible results of the CrySyS Lab include the discovery and the first analysis of Duqu, a targeted malware with striking similarities to the Stuxnet worm, which threatened industrial control systems. The CrySyS Lab also found the dropper of Duqu, which used a zero-day MS Windows kernel exploit, and developed an open source Duqu detector toolkit. CrySyS lab has strong competence in traditional penetration testing, and testing of advanced network defence solutions. CrySyS Lab regularly participates in CTF competitions, and it won iCTF 2015 and qualified for the DEFCON CTF Final in 2015 and in 2016.
Role in the project: P3 will lead work package WP3 Laboratory Development. P3 was chosen to lead this work package because of their competence in network and computer security, penetration testing, strong partnerships with industrial control system vendors/integrators, as well as the fact that they built build an Industrial Automation and Control System (IACS) security test bed. P3 will provide laboratory and course development trainings to P1, P5, P6 and P9. P3 will be an excellent knowledge provider for the Serbian HEIs due to their 15+ years of specific information security education experience. P3 will collaborate with all Serbian HEIs in curriculum development in P3 key areas of expertise, e.g. critical infrastructure security, secure software development, network security. It will validate and verify the laboratories and curricula during onsite visits and thereby provide valuable inputs to P4 leading the quality control activities.
Polytechnic University of Milano (Polimi), Italy – P4
Politecnico di Milano is the largest Italian engineering university, with over 1500 faculty members. The Department actively involved in cybersecurity is the Dipartimento di Elettronica, Informazione e Bioingengeria (DEIB, http://www.deib.elet.polimi.it), with 200+ faculty members and slightly short of 200 PhD students and postdoc researchers. The cybersecurity research group works at the NECSTLab (http://necst.it) of DEIB and is led by Prof. Stefano Zanero. NECSTLab hosts approximately 40 M.Sc. and PhD students performing research in system architectures and security at any given moment in time.
In addition to state-of-the-art research facilities for a computer engineering lab, POLIMI designed, implemented, owns and operates a private cloud, PoliCloud (http://policloud.polimi.it), which currently includes 454 CPUs (1,816 cores) and approximately 6 TB of memory. Also, NECST hosts AndroTotal (http://andrototal.org), a service to process, index and scan suspicious Android applications. The collection is constantly growing and currently consists of terabytes of (malicious and benign) Android applications. It fuels malware analysis research, and received the attention of several research groups and major AV vendors.
POLIMI has an extensive history of excellence in teaching, and a growing effort in internationalization. Besides the traditional European networking activities, POLIMI participated in a few activities specifically in the cybersecurity area: SysSec (a European Network of Excellence funded under H2020 by DG CONNECT) and TENACE, a nationally-funded project on critical infrastructure protection, from which the core of the CINI CyberSecurity Lab was born (the CyberSecurity lab is a nationwide network of training and research).
Currently, POLIMI is involved in the Marie-Curie RISE project PROTASIS, also focused on cybersecurity training and research.
Role in the project: P4 will lead Work Package 5 (WP5) – Quality Plan. It will be a key player in putting together the Repository of Information Security Concepts (RISC) and the Course and Laboratory Quality Reports in the preparation phase, as well as organize and lead the Quality Board meetings in the quality control work package (WP5). It will also organize the external quality assessments. Collaborates with the Serbian HEIs in curriculum development in P4’s key information security domains, namely critical infrastructure security and digital forensics. Provides trainings to Serbian HEI representatives during onsite visits. Provides trainings to researchers and teachers from Serbian HEIs visiting Polimi.
University of Belgrade (UB), Serbia – P5
The University of Belgrade is the oldest university in Serbia and the largest in this part of Europe. Founded in 1808, it consists of 31 faculties, 11 research institutes, 13 University centers, Computer Center and the University Library with more than 3.500.000 volumes. It provides education in sciences and mathematics, technology and engineering sciences, medical sciences, social sciences and humanities, with 340 study programs, over 95.000 students and 5.000 academic and research staff. The University has 11 endowments and 7 funds for supporting the best students. The UB takes active part in European programs as a grant holder and partner in many projects (Horizon 2020, Erasmus+, TEMPUS, FP7, CIP, LLP, Erasmus Mundus, EUREKA, COST, IPA etc.).
The School of Electrical Engineering (UB-ETF) was founded in 1948, and today it’s the largest engineering faculty in the region, and the 3rd largest engineering faculty in Europe. UB-ETF is a multidisciplinary research and higher education division of the University of Belgrade unit. UB-ETF pursues research in power engineering, electronics, physical electronics, signals and systems, telecommunications, computer engineering, and software engineering. It employs about 160 professors and assistants. It enrols the total of about 1100 students per school year. Information security education at the UB-ETF is currently limited to one BSc course focusing on basic information security principles, cryptography, network security and system security.
The Faculty of Organizational Sciences (UB-FOS) is one of the leading higher education institutions in the region with a more than 40-year long tradition. It is the leading education and research institution in the field of organizational sciences, management, information systems and technologies. It has over 3500 students on 18 different study programs on undergraduate, graduate and postgraduate levels of studies.
Role in the project: P5 has extensive experience in teaching Computer Science and basic experience in Information Security. P5 will participate with two faculties in the consortium, namely the School of Electrical Engineering and the Faculty of Organizational Sciences. P5 will choose the Deputy Project Manager and lead work packages WP4 – Education Programme Development and WP6 – Dissemination and Exploitation, because of P5’s location in Belgrade, the capital of Serbia, near to the relevant ministries and other key stakeholders in higher education from where they can make the highest impact. P5 will organize one Steering Committee meeting, a workshop and an information security roundtable with stakeholders from academia, the private and public sector and Non-Governmental Organizations (NGO). P5 will create curricula for seven new courses, one new MSc programme in Digital Forensics and two laboratories. Additionally, they will modernize 5 of their existing computer science courses.
University of Niš (UNI), Serbia – P6
The University of Nis was founded in 1965 as a state funded higher education institution. It is a medium-sized, mature and well developed academic community, comprising 13 faculties. The University of Nis presently has 28207 students at all levels of studies, 1639 teaching staff and 740 administrative and support staff. Its study programmes are in compliance with the European standards in terms of admission requirements, duration of study, mode of study and acquiring diploma, particularly with regard to the outcome of the study programme, or the students’ competence. The University of Nis has multidisciplinary study programmes, lifelong learning programmes outside the study programme curriculum and professional development and distance learning programmes and supports continual and professional (scientific, research, and professional) general interest activity of its teachers, researchers, teaching assistants, and students, and supports their participation in national and international project activity as well as presentation and publication of the results of scientific activity. It conducts innovation activity with the purpose of creating new products, technology, processes, and services, or significantly altering the existing ones, according to the demands of the market. By subscribing the Declaration of commitment to the principles of the recommendation of the European Commission on the “European Charter for Researchers“ and “The Code of Conduct for the Recruitment of Researchers“ the University of Nis reaffirms its intention to contribute to the advancement of the European Research Area and demonstrates a lasting policy of the University of Nis to be part of the European academic map.
The capacity of UNI to deal with the theme of the project is based on the potential of the Faculty of Electronic Engineering who teach entry level courses in information and network security and digital forensic analysis.
Role in the project: P6 will participate in all work packages and all dissemination activities. P6 will have an active role in developing teaching materials and laboratories. They will focus on Digital Forensics and Network Security, in which areas they already teach introductory level courses on the BSc and MSc levels. They will develop two laboratories for each of the above mentioned domains. They will organize a project workshop and a roundtable with information security stakeholders in Nis. P6 will organize one Steering Committee meeting. Together with P10 and the associated partner(s) in Nis they will work on developing novel exploitation techniques.
Schneider Electric DMS NS Llc (SEDMS), Novi Sad, Serbia – P7 (changed status to Associate partner)
Schneider Electric DMS NS Llc is a joint venture IT company for research, development and engineering in the field of the electrical power engineering management software. SEDMS is a large enterprise and a fast-growing company. It currently employs over 1000 experts, 30 of which hold PhDs in power engineering or computer science. P7 cooperates with universities, power utilities, manufacturers and IT integrators worldwide. SEDMS provides and services to utility companies. Its key Industrial Control and Decision Support Systems software products are the Advanced Distribution Management System (ADMS) and Advanced Gas Management System (AGMS), which are deployed in 157 control centres worldwide.
SEDMS is currently transforming its product oriented portfolio into a service oriented business model. As part of this transformation SEDMS plans to sell their products in a cloud-based Software as a Services (SaaS) package. In this transformation SEDMS need a strong information security team.
Role in the project: P7 will take part in all work packages. They will be the main exploitation partner in Novi Sad as P7 is in the process of building a strong information security team and will be able to employ the university graduates trained at P1’s new MSc program built as part of this project. P7 will incorporate the Repository of Information Security Concepts (RISC) built by the consortium in the project preparation phase into its internal Information Security Management System (ISMS). It will closely collaborate with P1 and participate in its curricula and laboratory development efforts. P7’s Subject Matter Experts (SME) involved in the project will ensure that the consortium builds curricula and laboratories which are aligned with the state-of-the-art needs of the critical infrastructure industry.
Unicom Telecom Ltd (UT), Belgrade, Serbia – P8
Unicom Telecom is a system integrator in Serbia, with a strong focus on developing solutions and services, nurturing a culture of innovation and people development. It was established in 2014 and works in almost all industrial branches – government, telco, finance, utility, retail and SMB – responding to the customers’ needs and requirements. The main focus is on cybersecurity, business intelligence, customer experience, smart metering, education and providing cloud services. Unicom Telecom is involved in cybersecurity in Serbia and other countries in the region on various levels – from strategic, policy to technical level – participating in different strategic workgroups and implementing cybersecurity solutions. Unicom Telecom has an expertise and a strong partnership with leading vendor companies – IBM, Cisco, Juniper, Fortinet, Symantec, FireEye, Radware, Itron and more. As people development is considered as one of the main values of the company, Unicom Telecom is currently establishing a Cybersecurity Academy, to help to decrease the shortage of cybersecurity workforce.
Role in the project: P8 will take part in all work packages and will be tasked with exploitation activities in Belgrade. The P8 Subject Matter Experts (SME) involved in the project have 15+ years of information security experience working for some of the largest Information and Communication Technologies (ICT) companies in Belgrade. They also maintain excellent connections with private and public institutions, as well as relevant Non-Governmental Organizations (NGO) in the capital. Their core expertise lies in incorporating information security solutions into existing business processes. Therefore they will be also involved in curricula development, mainly in the more business oriented subjects.
Subotica Tech – College of Applied Sciences (VTS), Serbia – P9
Subotica Tech was founded in Subotica in 1960 by the Provincial government. It is the only fully bilingual state college for technical applied studies. The College has 5 Bachelor study programs and 1 specialization, currently operating with five departments, and over 60 teaching and non-teaching staff. Subotica Tech has more than 500 students. The College has been involved in various educational projects, as well as research projects (ERASMUS +, TEMPUS, IPA, CEEPUS). The Department of Informatics is the largest department, both in terms of teaching staff and the number of students enrolled in these study programs. The work of the department includes teaching activities in the field of programming, data management, software engineering, applied software engineering, and information security. P9 has relevant educational and research experience in Information Security. Subotica Tech stores and manages its own data for more than a decade now on the College’s own servers, applying appropriate data protection measures. Furthermore, the College’s servers are used for data storage by another higher education institution, namely the Hungarian Language Teacher Training Faculty in Subotica, University of Novi Sad, highlighting both the need for data protection and the importance of successful cooperation.
Role in the project: P9 will take part in all work packages. P9 will be involved in the development of teaching materials for two entirely new courses and develop a state-of-the-art cloud security laboratory. They will closely cooperate with P3 and P5. P9 will organize one Steering Committee meeting and one roundtable with key information security stakeholders in Subotica. P9 will benefit from the project by gaining access to the curricula developed at the other Serbian HEIs.
Innovation Center Of The University Of Niš Ltd (ICUN), Serbia – P10
The Innovation Center of the University of Niš ltd is a legal entity with a form of two-tier limited liability company. The main headquarters of the Innovation Center is located in Niš, at the University square No. 2.
The Innovation Center of the University of Niš represents an innovative organization where scientific results and modern technological processes developed within and outside of the Center operation are systematically applied to create innovation, develop prototypes, new products, processes and services or improvement of existing products, technologies and services in a given area, while, at the same time, transferring knowledge and technologies to production and services of other business entities, doing so through realization of domestic and international scientific research projects, research and development projects and innovation projects.
The main task of the Innovation Center is the application of scientific, technical and technological knowledge, innovation and invention in order to create and realize improved and new products, processes and services, as a driving force of technological, business and economic development of the Republic of Serbia.
The Innovation Center is capable of performing research in different research areas. With respect to modern demands, highly skilled professional staff, appropriate equipped work space, equipment, internet communication, information system for financial business accounting, laboratories and other means necessary to perform the work program and realize projects are provided.
Role in the project: P10 acts as an intermediary between the scientific institutions and the industry. Therefore, it is in the best position to get an insight into the needs of industry for professionals in different fields, as well as to analyse the needs of the economy for adequate knowledge, skills, and competences of the professionals to be employed. These insights will be key in tailoring the curricula and laboratories built at P6 in accordance with the industry needs. The combination of scientific skills gained ath P6 and entrepreneurial skills provided through P10 will ensure that the new graduates will have better employability and thus to increase the general level and diversify industrial activity in the region.
P10 will make a special contribution to the practical training of master students in jobs transfer of technologies and dissemination of project results to small and medium enterprises.
Associated partners
| Ref.nr | Name of organisation | Type of institution | City | Country | Role in the project |
| P11 | M&I Systems, Co. Group | SME | Novi Sad | Serbia | Cloud and business systems |
| P12 | Singi Engineering Ltd | SME | Belgrade | Serbia | Data protection, anti-malware |
| P13 | Evopro System Engineering | SME | Budapest | Hungary | Industrial Control Systems (ICS) |
| P14 | NetVisor Ltd | SME | Budapest | Hungary | IoT and Big Data consultancy, student internships |
| P15 | Advanced Security Technologies (AST) | SME | Nis | Serbia | Risk Analysis and Management, System Hardening |
| P16 | TIAC Ltd | SME | Novi Sad | Serbia | Business |
| P17 | Eccentrix Ltd | SME | Belgrade | Serbia | Training, Certifications, Security Concepts |
| P18 | Verisec Labs d.o.o. | SME | Belgrade | Serbia | PKI consultancy, student internships |
| P19 | Cisco Serbia | Large Enterprise | Belgrade | Serbia | IoT security, network infrastructure security |
