Congratulations on the day and the opening of NORCICS – Norwegian Centre for Cyber Security in Critical Sectors!

It is a great day for NTNU, NTNU Gjøvik, for the Department of information security and communication technology and for the research group within cyber security at the department. It is a great day for all our partners and collaborators. 

I would especially like to address the project manager Sokratis Katsikas, head of department Nils Kalstad and vice rector Jørn Wroldsen. They have all worked strategically and focused to build this centre of expertise in information security at NTNU Gjøvik. The rector of NTNU, Anne Borg, also sends her best regards.

To receive and win in a very strong competition a centre for research-based innovation is a lot of hard work. Actually, this year our faculty managed to win 4 centres funded by the Research Council of Norway. The others are within artificial intelligence, autonomy and geophysical forecasting. 

It could not have been done without the partners and the strong collaboration.  We have a joint goal to provide knowledge, knowhow and education within the area of information security.

At our faculty we have the largest community in Norway within cyber security, data science, communication technology and AI. We will contribute strongly to realise a larger degree of digitalisation in Norway. 

The digital wave has hit us, with good help of the pandemic. It is happening in public sectors, industry and academia. This imposes cyber security challenges. NORCICS’ vision is to contribute to making Norway the most securely digital country in the world through contributions in research, education and innovation. This is an important vision and ambition.

The Norwegian government has decided that Norway will join the Digital Europe Programme. NTNU will apply for a digital innovation hub which will supply competence and services within cyber security and AI. This hub, if funded, will be closely linked to NORCICS and the Cyber Range Lab and supply facilities to enable testing and verification of new algorithms and solutions. This link will be important to facilitate innovations from our centre.

The large and fast development in digital technologies, such as communication technology, gives us new opportunities in the way we monitor and remotely control installations and industrial processes. We are still in the early days of the digital age. Even though it seems we have come far compared to the ‘80s.

Digitalisation is a key to the green future. Safe and secure digital solutions is essential if we are going to go through a major transformation. Therefore, NORCICS is a key component to realise the green shift!

I will follow closely as the head of the steering committee and I am really looking forward to the collaboration with the partners. I believe that we together will contribute to handling cyber risks better in the future. 

I wish you all a great day!