Last month, a group of (prospective) members of the ACCSS association celebrated that ACCSS - ACademic Cyber Security Society; pronounced ‘access’ - is now a formal association, of and for scientists who are active in the Netherlands in the field of cybersecurity from all disciplines. Marten van Dijk, head of CWI’s Computer Security research group, is one of its Board Members.
During their first online meeting Bibi van den Berg (photo left) explained to the 37 participants the reasons for self-organization, the objectives of the association, membership and the way in which the members can jointly achieve those goals.
ACCSS acts as the hub of the network of all cybersecurity scientists in the Netherlands and is the gateway for public and private parties that want to contact the affiliated scientists. The association acts as a representative of cybersecurity scientists in the Netherlands to highlight shared points of view and provide input in policy processes where expertise on cybersecurity is needed. The association positions itself as an unambiguous and recognizable point of contact for science for the new collaboration platform cybersecurity, the successor to dcypher.
The daily board consisting of Bibi van den Berg (chairman), Aiko Pras (vice-chairman), Joeri Toet (treasurer) and Jan Piet Barthel (advisor), has been intensively involved in the process surrounding the establishment, which led to the formal association on 18 June. Together with Herbert Bos, Michel van Eeten and Marten van Dijk they form the board of the association. In the coming months until November, when the first General Assembly is held, members can register.
Aiko Pras (photo middle) presented the position of ACCSS in the Dutch cybersecurity landscape. He represents ACCSS on the board of the new dcypher. Then there was a discussion about the interpretation of the activities of the association. In addition to research, education and communication, a few of the themes that should receive attention include diversity, inclusiveness and ethics.
As the last part of the program, Bart Preneel (photo right), professor of honour from Leuven, gave a keynote entitled “Impact of Cybersecurity and Privacy Research”. He argued, among other things, for more research collaboration between the Netherlands and Belgium, shared his vision of the European Competence Center and gave a nice piece of advice at the end of his speech: “Engage with policymakers and civil society.”
Finally, all participants raised their glasses and an online toast was made to a successful future of ACCSS. Cheers!
Source: ACCSS news item
On the picture a.o. Marten van Dijk (head of CWI's Computer Security group), Ronald Cramer (head of CWI's Cryptology group), Serge Fehr, Marc Stevens, Lisa Kohl and Chenglu Jin from CWI during the first online meeting on 25 June 2021.
