Table of Contents 

Executive Summary

Establishing long-term links, i.e. beyond the life-time of the FIDIS NoE, between partners is key to ameliorating the research fragmentation issues both at a fundamental level across disciplines and at the broader level across Europe. The specific aim of the FIDIS Doctoral Consortium is to establish an interdisciplinary network of PhD-students through structured events and as such these events are clearly of high value. The consortium is an important integrative and disseminative part of the Network: It connects students and researchers from the disparate FIDIS domains together, fosters interdisciplinary collaboration and is an important platform for networking. Indeed being a heterogeneous environment, the DC meetings are a unique opportunity to exchange ideas and build a true research network.

The target for this Workplan was to build upon previous structured training within the valuable FIDIS PhD student community based on feedback from the students and other participants during previous events held by WP8 and WP15, and from the FIDIS network as a whole. The given objective was to hold one or two further DC events during this period. 

Within the last Workplan period, WP15 has held a successful Doctorial Consortium event on the topic of e-Government and e-Business. Feedback from the participants has been good, although it is acknowledged that a shift in thinking is needed at this stage in the FIDIS project’s lifetime with regard to the DC events. This is especially because few new students have joined the network, and existing students are becoming increasingly time pressured as their studies move toward completion. As such, in addition within this Workplan, rather than planning another smaller DC event, we have diversified in order to encourage students to attend other larger, more established events, while enhancing these events through additional activities where possible. In this case, it has been through the Privacy Enhancing Technologies 2008 symposium, whereby less mature work from a range of disciplines was sought for presentation and discussion during the event and discount registration was offered, and the upcoming larger DC event which, given its popularity, has been extended through combining resources to include more activities then originally envisaged. 

Introduction

A Network of Excellence (NoE) is an instrument for strengthening excellence by tackling the fragmentation of research across Europe, where the main deliverable is a durable integration of the research capacities of the participants. The exchange of knowledge is essential in this context, and considered one of the desiderata within FIDIS. Equally, establishing long-term links, i.e. beyond the life-time of the NoE, between partners is key to ameliorating the fragmentation issues both at a fundamental level across disciplines and at the broader level across Europe. One core method by which both can be attained is through the cross discipline training of PhD students within the FIDIS network.

The ‘FIDIS Doctoral Consortium’ is an important integrative and disseminative part of the Network: It connects students and researchers from the disparate FIDIS domains together, fosters interdisciplinary collaboration and is an important platform for networking. Indeed being a heterogeneous environment, the DC meetings are a unique opportunity to exchange ideas and build a true research network. While much of the work developed and discussed during these events has been the basis of subsequent conference submissions by the participants, collaborative, cross-discipline journal publications have also started to appear as a direct result of these events.

Whilst the PhD events have their core objectives and means to achieve them, as the FIDIS network matures it is necessary to reflect on the changing needs of the Doctoral Consortium. This is especially true given the length of time over which the FIDIS project is running as compared with the standard length of time a student will be undertaking their postgraduate studies. Within this Workpackage there has been a shift in approach to maximise the value of the work done here. This is detailed in section .

Aims of the FIDIS Doctoral Consortium

Training for PhD students within FIDIS is conducted through structured and timely events held at or in association with an academic institution within the FIDIS network. The specific aim of the FIDIS Doctoral Consortium is to establish an interdisciplinary network of PhD-students through topical events. 

Currently FIDIS has some 41 registered PhD students associated with the network, representing 10 of the 24 partner institutions. The database of all active PhD students is periodically updated, and emphasis is put on encouraging those members of less active institutions to take part in the events. There is some clear bias towards technical institutions in the way that these students are distributed across the network, and as such a key part of the organisational aspects of these events is to ensure that a fair and reasonable representation of disciplines is achieved at each event.  

The core FIDIS Doctoral Consortium event objectives are as follows: 

1. Encourage sustainable FIDIS integration 

2. Hold discussion and training around a core FIDIS topic 

3. Link event with FIDIS work, communicated via finished, active or proposed deliverables 

4. Maintain academic quality 

The structure of the events as used to date has previously been detailed at length in FIDIS deliverable D15.1. However, as the FIDIS network matures it is necessary to reflect on the changing needs of the Doctoral Consortium. This is especially true given the length of time over which the FIDIS project is running as compared with the standard length of time a student will be undertaking their postgraduate studies. 

Having undertaken a review of the FIDIS DC events, and requested feedback from the PhD students within the network, several salient points have been established: 

1. Although the scope of the FIDIS project is broad, the core topics have been well explored during the PhD events 

2. Although the FIDIS project has a lifetime of five years, comparatively few new students have joined the network since its outset 

3. Existing students are very progressed in their PhD work and thus have time pressures against events lasting a few days and/or involving travelling time 

Certainly one of the benefits of the FIDIS DC events is that they are multidisciplinary and can explore areas which are new to the participants. However, this means that in general the events have had a broad scope, and so many of the core topics relating to ongoing FIDIS work, and thus the work of the students, have been presented by varying members of the FIDIS consortium. As such, it is becoming more of a complex task to provide events which prove of great value to a range of participants, especially those who have been to many of the other DC events. 

Largely because of these issues, it is becoming increasingly hard to attract a critical mass of interest in smaller events. It should be noted however that the larger events, such as the FIDIS Summer Schools (D15.2 and D15.3) and the larger joint events such as that with the ACGT project (D15.5) are still very popular. As such, subsequently there will be a strategic shift in approach. Essentially the focus of future events will be: 

1. Merging training activities in with other events to enhance their overall value 

2. Encouraging students to participate in events they may otherwise not through the use of reduced fees 

3. Providing a forum for debate on a core topic where there is significant interest. The focus at these events will be less on presentations and more on discussion. 

Within this period, all three of these approaches have been adopted to provide a diverse range of activities. These are detailed below. 

DC5:

The fifth WP15 FIDIS Doctoral Consortium Event (DC5) “Identity and Identification in e-Business and e-Government” was held in Bonn, Germany on the 21st – 23rd February 2008. This event was organised by Sirrix AG. Below are detailed the key aspects of the event, the full event programme is given in Annex 1.

Event synopsis

Over the past decade, the European Union has increasingly promoted and supported the development of e-Government. In its 2003 Communication, the Commission defines e-Government as: “the use of information and communication technologies in public administration combined with organisational change and new skills in order to improve public services and democratic processes and strengthen support to public policies.” e-Government is considered not only the way forward to realise better and more efficient administration, but also as a means for the public sector to maintain and strengthen “good governance”  in the information society. Meanwhile, e-Business has gone from strength to strength since the boon of the internet. In the emerging global economy, e-Commerce and e-Business have increasingly become a necessary component of business strategy and a strong catalyst for economic development. The integration of information and communications technology in business has enhanced productivity, encouraged greater customer participation, and enabled mass customisation, besides reducing costs. Identity management plays a critical role in the field of both e-Government and e-Business, and many issues in this area remain unresolved.

Event objectives

While each of the participants was required to present their work related to the core event topics, this event was less about presentations, and more about stimulating discussion and debate around the core themes. This was done to reflect feedback from past events in that usually interesting discussion is cut short since there is a tight agenda. As such, a focussed group whose research interests lie in this area were bought together to draw on each others perspectives through discussion sessions guided by the senior academics. 

Conclusion

This event was timely since it tied in specifically with a new FIDIS Workpackage (WP16). The current objectives of WP16 “e-Government” are the definition of a conceptual framework that brings the basic concepts of (1) privacy and data protection, (2) identity management and (3) e-Government together. This Workpackage aims to further the foundations made in earlier FIDIS work, and as such a body of information was readily available for the students if required. We were especially fortunate to have the Workpackage leader from WP16 giving a keynote presentation and leading subsequent discussion on the ongoing research within FIDIS and beyond. 

This event proved to be popular with, in all, 12 participants involved - see Annex 2 for the full list of participants. The list of topics presented and discussed is detailed in the program of events given in Annex 1. Overall, the feedback from the students was good, especially with regard to the choice of topic, its relevance to their own work, and the wider work of their institution. The shift towards extended discussion was also well received, especially as many had attended previous events and had specifically noted the need for more debate to achieve more value from each presentation. The event duration remains a point of discussion, with some welcoming a longer event to allow for even more extended sessions, whilst others suggested shorter events to ease issues with scheduling.

Collaboration with Other Events

Given the need for a shift in approach with regard to the FIDIS DC events, rather than running a further smaller event within this Workplan, resources were directed at formulating and planning ways to encourage students to participate in events that they may otherwise not through the development of appropriate sessions, the merging of training activities in with other events to enhance their overall value and thus appeal, and reduction of registration costs. This approach has been adopted in two areas, the planning of which is described below. 

Privacy Enhancing Technologies Symposium 2008

The 8th Privacy Enhancing Technologies Symposium (PETS 2008) is held in Leuven, Belgium on July 23rd - 25th. It aims to bring together anonymity and privacy experts from around the world to discuss recent advances and new perspectives in privacy for the Internet and other communication networks. The symposium proceedings will be subsequently published in the Springer Lecture Notes in Computer Science series.

The symposium is of great relevance to the going work of FIDIS, and has been recognised as a worthwhile event to attend in the past. Of benefit here, this year’s event is being organised and hosted by K.U. Leuven, a FIDIS consortium member, and held in a good geographically central location. Typically the symposium takes the form of a standard conference which lessens its appeal to those with less mature work to present. As such we have supported the idea of the addition of a new feature at this year’s event called ‘Hot-PETs’ which, although still requiring peer review, invited submissions of the ‘hottest most exciting ideas that are still in a formative state’. Such an endeavour opens up the event for students with ongoing work, and gives them access to expert advice and feedback at an earlier stage in their studies.  

Importantly for FIDIS, not only submissions technical in nature were sought, instead challenges from other fields whereby the audience may learn about real world needs that require new research and solutions were especially encouraged. The intent was to bring new questions, approaches, and problems to the privacy community for cross-disciplinary discussion, feedback, and consideration of new approaches based on the diverse expertise of the attendees. While Hot-PETs speakers still present their work, and then have time for discussion, the presentations will not be published in the proceedings. This has been a deliberate decision such that authors can subsequently publish the work either in a future PETs event or elsewhere when it is further developed. 

While the additional session serves to widen the appeal of the event to the FIDIS DC, WP15 has additionally negotiated a 40% reduction in registration for up to 10 FIDIS members submitting work to the Hot-PETs session. While all of the administration related to this event is all being handled by the symposium organisers, it is known that 8 of these places were taken by the registration deadline. Feedback received will be reported as part of D15.6. 

Doctoral Consortium Event - “Identity of the mind, body and spirit”

Within the 5th Workplan of FIDIS, there was no provision made for a joint IFIP Summer School event (as in previous Workplans, e.g. D15.2 and D15.3) since the time in which these events can run falls out of the end of the project. Instead a larger DC event, jointly held with another FP6 funded project, was chosen (D15.5). This DC event is organised in cooperation with the ACGT project (Advancing Clinico Genomic Trials on Cancer). Researchers and students from this project will also participate, a factor that renders this event even more valuable as it enables the exchange of ideas between researchers from other fields. This cooperation also allows us to ensure the participation of renowned speakers such as Dr. Diana Bowman (Monash University, Australia), Brecht Claerhout (Custodix, Belgium), Prof. Nikolaus Forgo (University of Hannover, Germany), Dr Manolis Tsiknakis (FORTH, Greece).

It was decided that this event will run in June 2008, within the six month overlap period between Workplan 4 and Workplan 5. Following an excellent response to the call for interest (22 replies of interest from FIDIS members) issued in March, it was decided, with resources from the 4th Workplan, to extend this event by an additional optional day which will incorporate more training aspects associated with the smaller DC events which otherwise would not be included. This maximises the number of participants reached, and raises the value of the event altogether.

Because this event is a deliverable in its own right from the 5th Workplan, albeit marginally enhanced through additional resources, the bulk of the reporting will be made in the report which will follow this event after it has run in June 2008.

Conclusion

The ‘FIDIS Doctoral Consortium’ is an important integrative and disseminative part of the Network: It connects students and researchers from the disparate FIDIS domains together, fosters interdisciplinary collaboration and is an important platform for networking. Indeed being a heterogeneous environment, the DC meetings are a unique opportunity to exchange ideas and build a true research network. Establishing long-term links, i.e. beyond the life-time of the NoE, between partners is key to ameliorating the research fragmentation issues both at a fundamental level across disciplines and at the broader level across Europe, and as such these events are clearly of high value. Indeed there are several instances whereby participants have continued to work together beyond the event, and in some cases this has produced published work. It is hoped that these links forged will continue to thrive throughout and beyond the FIDIS project.

Within the last Workplan period, WP15 has held a successful Doctorial Consortium event on the topic of e-Government and e-Business. Feedback from the participants has been good, although it is acknowledged that a shift in thinking is needed at this stage in the FIDIS project’s lifetime with regard to the DC events. This is especially because few new students have joined the network, and existing students are becoming increasingly time pressured as their studies move toward completion. While the given objective was to hold one or two DC events during this period, in addition within this Workplan we have diversified in order to encourage students to attend other more established events, while enhancing them through additional activities where possible. In this case, it has been through the Privacy Enhancing Technologies 2008 symposium, whereby less mature work from a range of disciplines was sought for presentation and discussion during the event and discount registration was offered, and the upcoming larger DC event which, given its popularity, has been extended through combining resources to include more activities then originally envisaged.

For the continued work of this Workpackage, consideration must be given to the fact that WP15 is a Workpackage with notably fewer resources than all others within FIDIS, and that in the final phase of the FIDIS project the resource allocation across the board will be scaled back. The net result of this is that although there has been a progression in the evolution of the events held within WP15, this will be less reflected in the 5th Workplan in which only one final additional DC event (D15.6) is envisaged which in any case will take a different format. The emphasis on this event will be on ways to keep the network of students in contact and productive after the end of the FIDIS project such that collaboration can continue to evolve. This is especially true for cross-discipline activities which have begun to flourish as a result of the success of activities to date.

Annex 1: Event Programme DC5

Final Program 

Thursday, February 21st: Kick-Off Day:

17:30:

18:00 – 19:00:

19:00 – 19:30:

Self-introduction of the participants

19:30 – 21:00:

‘Web 2.0 is the business revolution in the computer industry caused by the move to the Internet as platform, and an attempt to understand the rules for success on that new platform’ … So what are the repercussions for Identity?

Friday, February, 22nd:

08:00:

09:00 – 09:45:

09:45 – 10:30:

10:30 – 11:00:

11:00 – 11:45:

Moi – c’est les autres? The unintended ways wherein the notions of the “personal” and the “collective” are shifting within modern information technology.

11:45 – 12:30:

12:30 – 14:30: Business Lunch with Discussion

14:30 – 15:30:

The FIDIS research in this area consists of defining the terminology, models, and requirements of an IDM system that is suitable for a large scale implementation in eGovernment, but which also takes into account privacy and data protection requirements in the basic architecture design. Here we discuss this ongoing endeavour.

15:30 – 16:15:

16:15 – 16:45:

16:45 – 19:00:

16:45 – 19:00:

In the social event part, we will have a dinner get-together in the heart of the old city of Cologne and visit the impressive “Kölner Dom”.

Saturday, February, 23rd:

8:00:

9:00 – 09:45:

Public understandings and expectations of biometric identity systems: a case study of the United Kingdom National Identity Scheme. 

09:45 – 10:30:

10:30 – 11:00:

11:00 – 13:00:

13:00 – 14:00:

14:00 – 15:00:

15:00:

- End of the DC event - 

Annex 2: List of DC5 Participants

The fifth DC event was held in Bonn, from the 21st to the 23rd February. Below is given a full list of participants from the DC event.

Participant

Niels Van Dijk

Ekaterina De Vries

Yoni De Mulder

N.S. van der Meulen    TILT

A.K.Martin

Rani Husseiki        SIRRIX

Patrick McKelvy

Mark Gasson        University of Reading

Brendan Van Alsenoy    K.U. Leuven

Michaela Schelz

Ammar Alkassar

Kevin Warwick