SNT - UNIVERSITY OF LUXEMBOURG

Early 2009, the University of Luxembourg (UL) created its first interdisciplinary research centre – the Interdisciplinary Centre for Security, Reliability and Trust (SnT) to spearhead one of the University’s priority areas. The creation of SnT and investments into this research field should be seen in the context of the government’s strategy to raise the competitiveness of Luxembourg and diversify the country’s economy, notably towards the ICT (Information and Communication Technologies) sector. The need for large infrastructure investments was recognized and today Luxembourg provides a very attractive environment (high bandwidth connectivity, fibre to the home deployment, data centres) for the development of high value ICT services and applications. Several successful ICT companies have their European headquarters in Luxembourg, for example, PayPal, iTunes, Amazon and Skype. Security, reliability and trust are keywords associated with the services that these companies provide. As part of the government’s strategy, SnT’s goal is to fuel these developments through cutting edge research and supplying competent people for building this sector of the economy. Through public private partnerships, SnT aims at increasing private research and development investments in the region.

SnT brings together researchers from partners and the UL faculties to carry out research and PhD education in Security, Reliability and Trust. The Centre aims to achieve high impact and excellence well beyond the academic community by collaborating with external partners such as industries, government bodies, institutions, and international actors. To facilitate the interaction with external partners, research activities are carried out through interdisciplinary strategic research programs targeting key areas of strategic importance for the region. The platforms represent application areas with a critical mass of scientific expertise at UL and they form a base from which partnered projects are launched.

To ensure relevance of SnT research and facilitate technology transfer, a Partnership Program was created where members co-invest in the Centre. These resources are used in projects defined together with Partners. By end of 2023, the SnT Partnership Program comprises more than 60 Partners among which 13 were setting up within the year. In order to further strengthen technology transfer activities, SnT launched its own Technology Transfer Office which act as a catalyst for spin-off activities and help researchers with proof of concept projects.

By end of 2023, some 480 people among which 180 PhD candidates and 130 Research Scientists and Associates were active at the Centre. The Centre is organized in 18 research groups headed by faculty members. Although our Centre has only 15 years old, we have been able to recruit very experienced and outstanding scientists as well as young and highly promising people in the early stages of their career.

Also, collaborations with European partners play a very important role in SnT development, which is currently being ramped up through numerous new European projects contributing to increase its visibility. To date, SnT participated or actively works in more than 150 European projects funded through: HorizonEurope, H2020, ESA, EDF, EDA, etc.