International Co-operation in Trustworthy,
Secure and Dependable ICT infrastructures

The second INCO-TRUST mission abroad took place to Japan during the week of 19 – 23rd May 2008 with the following purposes:

(a) presenting the INCO-TRUST project objectives to a major international conference, governmental program management and Industrial and Academic RTD personnel involved in ICT Trust, Security and Dependability (TSD);

(b) understanding and scoping the Japanese ICT-TSD program/profile;

(c) presenting the INCO-TRUST working groups (WGs) initial terms of references and profile requirements for the purposes of recruitment; and

(d) ascertaining potential for joint ICT TSD activities with Japan.

The mission was complemented with a keynote speaking slot at the 5th International Service Availability Symposium (ISAS 2008), which was hosted by the University of Tokyo during 19 – 21st May 2008. The INCO-TRUST presentation was made during a special session on International Cooperation chaired by Professor Takashi Nanya, who was also a participant in both of the International Workshops already held in November 2006 and April 2007. This exposure to a larger audience resulted in a significant number of early contacts from both Industry and Academic researchers from within the ICT Dependability communities.  The presentation made to ISAS 2008 can be found here » .

In addition, the organisers requested that the speakers provide an abstract of their talks so the participants could study them before the conference. The presentation abstract can be found  here ».

Following ISAS 2008, the INCO-TRUST members were invited to working meetings with the Japan Science and Technology Agency (JST)  and relevant JST - sponsored research communities including the team research-based Core Research for Evolution Science and Technology (CREST) Program.

The research areas identified for potential collaboration between the EU and Japan included:

• Dependability of embedded networked systems;
• Trust, Security and Dependability issues within advanced, smaller scale mobile devices;
• Dependability of operating systems for embedded systems aimed at practical applications;
• Security, privacy, trust and dependability of the future internet;
• TSD implications associated with technology innovation and integration for Information systems with Ultra Low Power;
• Ensuring TSD within creation and distribution environments of advanced digital media technology for daily living, taking into account the viewpoints of both research and user communities;
• Examining possibility for establishing linkages to International test-beds for ICT security, trust and privacy.

Finally, discussions were held about the possible forms of cooperation mechanisms in order to enable joint collaborative projects and programs between the EU and Japan. A number of practical options were discussed and would be followed up in the near future.