Becoming a partner

“Working with the Cyber CNI Chair is a bit like financing two theses with the CIFRE program, but having access to more than 10 theses instead, having full support of the supervision at IMT with strong and continuous links, and the possibility of receiving students on site at the company when useful, for local tests, exchanges, or installations.”

Marc-Oliver Pahl, research director and chairholder

Why should you engage as a partner at the chaire? Well, there are at least 8 reasons…

1. Extending competencies in Cybersecurity / participating in excellent research from the very top Grandes Ecoles in France on this subject (IMT Atlantique, Telecom Paris, Telecom SudParis): At the chaire we do excellent research on diverse aspects of cybersecurity for distributed networked systems. The range is from securing physical sensors and actuators on the field level, over Programmable Logic. Controllers (PLCs), SCADA, IT, Interfaces including Mixed Reality. Methods include security-by-design, distributed continuous monitoring, advanced data analytics including machine learning, automated defenses to increase the resilience, security policies from high to low level, automation. The concrete use cases come with the partners. The general focus is on critical infrastructures, including Industry 4.0, banking and IoT.

2. Access to many more research activities than you pay for: Besides that a big advantage for you could be that you will be able to follow all thesis obviously, which means though only paying for two PhD theses you have access to the many we will have, typically 10 in parallel. 

For that you will receive a monthly update and meeting opportunity with each student you declare interest to follow and influence the work. We have 2 times per year a Cyber CNI PhD day where the students present their progress to all partners. We have regular meetings with all industrial tutors individually and in group.

3. More opportunities for joint research

  • Continuous link for starting more research together, e.g. with final year students, in teaching, priority in hiring interns, …
  • Possibility for further research projects: The chaire is regularly working on project proposals in the context of the EU, ANR, … The partners of the chaire are typically the ones being included the first in such proposals.

4. Recruitment option: At the end of each thesis, the partners receive the CV of the PhD and can try to recruit her/him. If the collaboration works well, it should be simple to recruit the person afterwards.

5. „Neutral ground” exchange possibility with the other partners: In addition, an important aspect is the regular exchange on neutral terrain with the other partners. At the moment these are Airbus, Amossys, BNP Paribas, EDF, Nokia, and soon SNCF. This can well lead to further collaboration.

6. Access to our Cyber CNI experimentation platform for making joint experimentation with us and possibly in-between multiple partners, and priority access to our facilities, including a Faraday cage of 12m2, several cyber-physical research labs, etc.

7. Tax benefit: via mécénat. The Mines Telecom Foundation will be happy to answer any questions regarding this.

8. Additional Visibility: Joint publications, participation possibility in the diverse activities of the chaire, including: