Björn Ottersten, director of the University of Luxembourg’s Interdisciplinary Centre for Security, Reliability and Trust, says that in a short time the university and the SnT have built a strong reputation for high-quality research and teaching in the technology field, with a particular focus on collaboration with commercial partners to turn scientific discovery into business innovation.
The Swedish educator, researcher, and electrical engineer says fintech and space research are key priorities for SnT over the coming years.
What was the SnT established to achieve, and what is your role as its head?
When we set up SnT in 2009 as an interdisciplinary centre at the University of Luxembourg, it had its roots in initiatives by the government to invest in information and communication technology infrastructure, with the aim of making the grand duchy an attractive place to develop this kind of activity. The government wanted to encourage cloud services providers, e-commerce businesses and associated firms to domicile themselves in Luxembourg, including international companies such as eBay and Amazon.
We work on academic, long-term, high-risk research, but also demand-driven collaborative projects with industry and the public sector. We recruit talented people from all over the world, and we now have 50 nationalities represented. We have built a reputation as a highly competent research partner and aim to ensure that we make the best possible use of our public research funding.
How does this work in practice?
We work on two fronts. We build networks locally, entering into collaborative research projects and working with private companies and government institutes. These tend to be projects over four to five years with specific scientific and research objectives.
In addition, we work on a global level with our networks on the research and academic side, including projects such as the Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme initiated by the European Commission. This is high-level, very academic work, and we are collaborating with some of the top research teams in Europe.
How does your partnership programme operate?
In the partnership programme, one of our local initiatives, we approach potential partners in Luxembourg and ask them to co-invest. This has been fruitful: We now have 34 participants with long-term agreements who contribute around €4.5 million to our funding, around 20% of our budget.
What is your working philosophy?
People often distinguish between applied research and academic research. Our philosophy is that we must do long-term, high-risk research, but work in more demand-driven areas with commercial practitioners. Research needs applied research, and innovation needs commercialisation. Whenever you create an interface, it is difficult bringing the research outcome to the point of exploitation. You need to bring the barriers down, do everything under one roof – this is how we work. To our mind, working with real problems feeds into longer-term projects.
What have been your key successes so far?
We place a very high priority on our partnership projects. The success factor is to convince private companies to invest, and it is tricky! They simply won’t do it unless you are credible, and they believe you can deliver something that adds value. Achieving that trust and confidence takes years, so we are very happy to have built that.
We have established a strong presence in the Horizon 2020 programme. The EU Space programme is very competitive, and our involvement shows we can stand alongside the best in Europe. We were recently listed by Times Higher Education as 58th in the world for computer science. This shows we have created visibility and hired some very good people. It is all about getting the right people on board and helping them do what they are passionate about.
What are your priorities for the future?
When I started at the University of Luxembourg, I assumed I’d be doing lots of banking and finance-related activity because that’s a significant part of the national economy. It proved very different – we have worked with technology operators or systems integration people instead.
But over the past two years, something has happened in financial services. Virtual currencies such as bitcoin have galvanised people. Suddenly everyone is talking about technology within financial services, they have started to invest, and it is growing very quickly. This area has become a major priority for us, and we are starting to sign up new partners.
In Luxembourg, we have launched a big effort in space research, led by the deputy prime minister Etienne Schneider. We are working with the world’s largest satellite operator, SES, on satellite communications. Space Resources Luxembourg is a very futuristic idea – it’s about space and asteroid mining, sustaining life and business in space – and US and Japanese companies are setting up in Luxembourg. We’d like to be part of that picture. Research and development is required, so this is another area to develop over the next few years.
