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Cybersecurity Centre launches at the AGH UST

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Cybersecurity Centre launches at the AGH UST

The AGH UST launches the new Cybersecurity Centre. In the emergent formula that replaces the old unit, the Centre will integrate and coordinate the work of our scientists and students within this field across the university. Furthermore, the unit will supervise development work, educational activities, and international cooperation in the area of broad cybersecurity. Participating in the creation of security solutions for the country and region will strengthen the position of Poland in the war against cyber threats.

Monitoring current technological trends and the ever-growing landscape of potential cyber threats, we want to deliver solutions that will serve to increase the defence capabilities of our country, institutions, companies, and computer resources. At the Cybersecurity Centre, we will integrate the solutions already developed at the AGH UST with the expert knowledge of cybersecurity specialists and the passion of innovators’, emphasises Prof. Jerzy Lis, AGH UST Rector.

The new formula of the Centre is predominantly a step towards the intensification of research and development activity and the integration of experiences of scientists and students across the entire university, who deal with cybersecurity. The unit will also foster cooperation with regional and national public institutions, business, and foreign entities. An additional goal of the Centre is to provide support to the educational activity of the university in the field of cybersecurity. The Centre will have access to the already existing base, including the best infrastructure in Poland for data processing, laboratories, and the emerging Security Operations Center, which are crucial in the implementation of research and development projects.

The AGH UST will join the prominent circle of technical universities in Central and Eastern Europe, such as the University of Tartu or the Masaryk University, both of which boast thriving cybersecurity centres and which prioritise the need to build a regional capability in this dynamically developing field’, explains Prof. Marek Kisiel-Dorohinicki, who works at the Forensic Software Lab, associated with the AGH UST Institute of Computer Science, which, for more than a decade, has been creating software to support the functioning of institutions responsible for state security.

Within the Digital Europe Programme, the European Commission highlights that the key digital resources that merit further development in the new EU financial perspective include supercomputing, artificial intelligence, advanced digital skills, and cybersecurity, and the implementation of these goals also requires the participation of higher education institutions. The AGH UST Cybersecurity Centre has already begun establishing international consortia to carry out projects within Polish and European programmes and grant competitions.

Technological capabilities, innovations, and competencies built by the AGH UST in the field of cybersecurity support and will continue to support with even greater intensity public and private institutions in the area of cybersecurity. This is how I see the role that the Centre will play in the coming years. To this challenge, which the dynamic creation of the cybersecurity ecosystem will inevitably be, both inside and around the AGH UST, we will also invite public institutions, international partners, representatives of the private sector, and future experts of the Centre’s Advisory Board’, says Izabela Albrycht, new Director of the Cybersecurity Centre.

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Izabela Albrycht was the president of the Kosciuszko Institute for more than a decade. She is the co-creator of one of the most important conferences related to the strategic challenges of cybersecurity in Central and Eastern Europe – the CYBERSEC Forum. Between 2020 and 2022, as a member of the NATO Advisory Group on Emerging and Disruptive Technologies, she was creating the DIANA concept (Defence Accelerator Fund for North Atlantic) and the Innovation Fund. Among other things, she is also a member of the Digitalisation Council at the Chancellery of the Prime Minister and a Security and Defence Council at the Chancellery of the President of the Republic of Poland.

Stopka