Cyber security cOmpeteNCe fOr Research anD InnovAtion

Cyber security cOmpeteNCe fOr Research anD InnovAtion

Europe needs to step up its efforts and strengthen its very own security capacities to secure its digital society, economy, and democracy. It is time to reconquer Europe’s digital sovereignty. The vision for Europe can only be to join forces across Europe’s research, industry and public sector and to include all talents not just those that have representation in the EU mainstream or are within big organizations. Diversity and inclusion are keys for success. Europe has incredible coverage and talent in the area of IT and cybersecurity. The area of cybersecurity is geographically fragmented across Europe for competences, and often also technically fragmented with problem-specific development of security solutions. There is no doubt that excellent research exists in Europe. Nevertheless, it is a fact that this research does not result in IT products and solutions that contribute to the European Single Digital Market. On contrary, a lot of research, also financed by EU ERC grants, is tested on real data in large US companies that cooperate with them. Europe has to and is already rethinking this strategy. CONCORDIA addresses the current fragmentation of security competence by networking diverse competences into a leadership role via a synergistic agglomeration of a pan-European Cybersecurity Center. The vision of CONCORDIA is to build a community a strong cooperation between all stakeholders, understanding that all stakeholders have their KPIs, bridging among them, and fostering the development of IT products and solutions along the whole supply chain. Technologically, it projects a broad and evolvable data-driven and cognitive E2E Security approach for the ever-complex ever-interconnected compositions of emergent data-driven cloud, IoT and edge-assisted ICT ecosystems.