UNIVE HELPS COMPANIES OF THE RIR IMPROVENET TO DESIGN NEW SOLUTIONS

The researchers of the Department of Environmental Sciences, Informatics and Statistics (DAIS) of the Ca’ Foscari University of Venice are involved in the Project VIR2EM, thanks to their experience in issues related to the collection, management and processing of data, tools for designing and verifying complex systems and cybersecurity issues.

Ca' Foscari University Campus

Why did Ca’Foscari University join the Improvenet Network?

Being part of the RIR IMPROVENET is a consequence of the will of the University, and of the DAIS department specifically, to strengthen applied research activities in the field of industry 4.0, with particular attention to the digitization of production systems and to the problems of security and reliability of systems.

IMPROVENET is an ideal environment to get in touch with companies interested in developing projects with a high innovation content, taking advantage of new knowledge acquired at university level and providing new incentives for academic research. This is combined with the possibility of connecting our students (in particular those enrolled in Master’s degrees and Phd in ICT) with entrepreneurial realities engaged in the forefront of innovation projects.

The objective is therefore to strengthen the collaboration between research groups of Ca’ Foscari and the research and development units of the partner companies, in order to carry out joint projects with positive effects on both sides, academic and entrepreneurial.

What will the University accomplish during the VIR2EM Project?

The activity, conducted by Ca’ Foscari within the project VIR2EM, develops along two parallel lines of research, resulting also in two prototypes:

– the development of a cyber-security assessment tool specifically for ICS (Industrial Control Systems), which refers to the main industry standards (in particular ISO 62443) and recognised best practices.

– the development of organisational tools to support virtualization and process monitoring in particular:

  • the analysis of the reorganization, from the point of view of human resources management and processes, needed by the introduction of the remote activity and its impact on the organizational plan
  • the analysis of the impact of new technologies on the business, in terms of best practices, requirements and performance indicators (KPIs), also in view of the development of new business models
  • the creation of a data collection and a platform for the analysis of the impact of remote technologies on business models

In detail, these results will be achieved both through the analysis of relevant scientific literature, through working groups within the scientific departments, and through interviews with the companies involved, in order to understand the current impact on local companies and in the process of adopting remote technologies.

The platform for the collection and synthesis of data will be realized with the collaboration of some partner companies that will then contribute to its population.

With which other RIR partners will the project be carried out?

Ca’ Foscari University of Venice is collaborating with several project partners, in particular: Beantech, SIPA, T2I, Uqido, Zamperla, Xteam, Galdi and Qascom, in order to achieve the intended project goals.

How do you see the University at the end of the project?

At the end of the project, it is estimated that the knowledge of researchers involved in the impact of remote activity and virtualization on business models will be increased, also through comparison with the problems that arise from case studies offered by partner companies. In particular, the results obtained may be translated into a more general methodology also applicable to companies outside the project, both partners of the RIR and in general belonging to the University’s territory. The applicability of the methodology will also be facilitated by the prototyping platform.


Prof. Agostino Cortesi

Agostino Cortesi is a full professor of Computer Science at the Ca’ Foscari University of Venice. His main research interests concern software engineering and in particular static analysis techniques for verifying the reliability and security of software systems. He has published more than 150 articles in international journals and international conference proceedings. He currently coordinates the Phd in Computer Science and is responsible for the working group of Ca’ Foscari for the project VIR2EM.