Developing new security paradigms, architectures, and software, for more secure and trustworthy ICT systems and services has clear social, scientific, and market motivation. This motivation is becoming stronger due to the changing threat landscape; over the past decade we are witnessing an ever-increasing amount of cyberattacks on the Internet. We believe that to advance the field of cybersecurity, we must act proactively and in synergy, instead of being reactive to cyberattacks.

SHARCS (Secure Hardware-Software Architectures for Robust Computing Systems) aims at designing, building and demonstrating secure-by-design system architectures that achieve end-to-end security for their users. SHARCS will achieve this by systematically analyzing and extending, as necessary, every hardware and software layer in a computing system. The new technologies developed will be directly utilizable by applications and services that require end-to-end security.

Consortium

The Foundation for Research and Technology – Hellas (FORTH), established in 1983, is the largest Greek State R&D Centre. FORTH hosts six major Research Institutes. The Institute of Computer Science (ICS) has established an internationally acknowledged excellence in conducting basic and applied research, developing applications and products, and providing services. FORTH, besides its pioneering contributions in the sector of Information and Telecommunications Technologies in Greece, cooperates, in the context of European and international collaborative R&D programmes, with universities, research centres and other organisations at national and international level, thus contributing to the exchange of scientific ideas and the creation and transfer of new technologies. The research directions at ICS take into consideration the state of the art, international trends, research and technological challenges worldwide, as well as the national needs of the public and private sectors. FORTH represents Greece in the European Research Consortium for Informatics and Mathematics (ERCIM), an organisation dedicated to the advancement of European research and development in the areas of information technology and applied mathematics.

The Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam (VUA), established in 1880, is a private University located in the southern part of Amsterdam, The Netherlands. It has over 15,000 students studying in 12 faculties. The Computer Science Department is in the Faculty of Sciences and its staff consists of about 60 researchersand counts more than 40 Ph.D. students. The department has participated in many EU projects in the past.

Chalmers University of Technology (CTH) is among the top technical universities in Sweden. It was founded in 1829 following a donation by William Chalmers, director of the Swedish East India Company, and was transformed into an independent foundation in 1994. Chalmers’ annual turnover is 2,305 million SEK (appr. 250 million EUR), out of which 65% are related to research. Around 70% of the research funding is acquired in competition from external sources. More than 14,000 people, including over 12 000 students, work and study in some of Chalmers 17 departments. The university offers PhD and Licentiate programs as well as MScEng, MArch, BEng and nautical programs. There are around 6,000 students (FTE) taking graduate programs leading to some 900 Master degrees annually. About 1,000 students are involved in doctoral programs leading to around 300 PhD and Licentiate of Technology degrees each year.

Established in 1745, the Technische Universität Braunschweig (TUBS) is the oldest technical university in Germany with Carl Friedrich Gau as one of its early students and lecturers. Embedded systems are one of the core research areas of the EE department that continuously ranks in the top 10 EE departments in Germany. The Institute of Computer and Network Engineering (IDA) is internationally known as one of the pioneers in embedded system design automation, HW-SW co-design (with more than 800 references to a single seminal paper), and real-time analysis and optimization for networked systems. IDA has currently more than 60 staff members and more than 3 million EUR annual 3rd party funding (2009).

Neurasmus BV (NEU) is a research and development company operating under the holding of Erasmus MC. The company was founded in April 2010 by enthusiastic members of the department of Neuroscience. The mission of the company is to valorize already existing intellectual property on the department of Neuroscience as well as the development of new hitech medical systems which can be used as research tools or in treatment of neuroscience-related and other diseases. In the last 3 years, Neurasmus already launched a number of commercially available projects/services, which range from completely automated phenotypical tools to a high tech mobile lab unit for patient visits during clinical trials. One of the specific goals is the development of Whiskid, a large-scale FPGA cluster that models the cerebellum. The first modules that will build up Whiskid are already available for internal use. Since Neurasmus has access to all scientific data and intellectual property that exists on the department of Neuroscience and currently contracts mechanical, software and hardware experts as well, it is well equipped for rapid development from idea to prototype of complex systems.

OnApp Limited (ONAPP) is an SME that builds and provides cloud software platform solutions based on multiple layers of cloud services. ONAPP solutions enable providers to stay profitable and competitive by launching their own unique Cloud or CDN services, quickly, easily and cost-effectively. The main product is a platform that allows users to control and manage their own cloud services in a simple way. This links with a novel storage platform that provides an integrated storage solution that is an alternative to costly Storage Area Network (SAN) systems. ONAPP has also successfully developed a Content Delivery Network (CDN) that is currently based in 35 countries. ONAPP has grown rapidly and has already established itself in a competitive market.

The IBM Haifa Research Lab (IBM) is IBM’s largest research laboratory outside of the United States, employing almost 500 researchers, the majority of whom hold doctorate and masters degrees in computer science, electrical engineering, mathematics, and related fields. Since its founding in 1972, HRL has conducted world class research vital to IBM’s success. R&D projects are being executed today in areas such as Healthcare and Life Sciences, Verification Technologies, Telco, Machine Learning, Cloud Computing, Multimedia, Active Management, Information Retrieval, Programming Environments and Information and Cyber Security.

Elektrobit Automotive GmbH (EB) is a leading company providing solutions for embedded systems in automotive environments. Our product portfolio contains different types of standard modules (e.g. AUTOSAR modules) as well as specific solutions (e.g. navigation software) and development tools (e.g. GUIDE for automotive HMI development). Elektrobit was founded in 1988 as 3SOFT GmbH and was acquired in 2004 by the Finnish Elektrobit Corporation. Elektrobit has branch offices in Germany (Munich, Stuttgart, Brunswick, Ingolstadt, Konstanz) and subsidiaries across the globe (US, France, Japan, China, Romania, Austria).