The Hilti Chair of Data and Application Security will serve to establish in Liechtenstein an independent scientific location in the field of IT security that closely interlinks research, teaching, knowledge transfer and further education. The new chair will be instrumental in setting up the Centre of Competence for IT Security, where regular expert discussions and knowledge transfer will take place with the regional economy and society. Michael Hilti explained the establishment of the endowed chair: “Liechtenstein is already a strong business location, but we also have to regard the transformation brought about by digitisation as an opportunity for further development – and the University of Liechtenstein plays a key role in this”.
Research will focus on identifying new types of attacks and issues regarding the security of the Internet of Things, cryptocurrencies, and autonomous systems based on artificial intelligence (AI) innovations. “Digitisation offers numerous opportunities for the country, but new business models also need to be secure, otherwise digitisation can involve considerable risks. The sponsoring of the newly endowed chair is ground-breaking here and we are very grateful for the founder’s continued trust in our work at the University” said Prof. Dr. Jan vom Brocke, Head of the Institute of Information Systems and himself holder of the Hilti Chair of Business Process Management, which was founded in 2007. “We are particularly delighted to be able to expand these competencies and further increase the benefits of our work for the economy and society.”
The Institute of Information Systems is also establishing a new area of specialisation in “Data and Application Security” within the existing master's degree programme “Information Systems”, which will start in the winter semester of 2018. The University of Liechtenstein is thus actively contributing to ensuring that the regional economy is able to meet its demand for specialists in this field with highly qualified graduates.
With the appointment of Pavel Laskov as chair, the university has gained a renowned expert, who has previously worked at the Fraunhofer Institute FIRST in Berlin, the University of Tübingen and the European research centre of the telecommunications equipment supplier Huawei in Munich.