SIMAVI and NTUA initiated a workshop to bridge communication between all three projects funded under SU-DS04-2018-2020 call. The aim of this workshop was to introduce the projects, identify similarities and explore collaboration opportunities from both technical and dissemination perspectives. EnergyShield, PHOENIX and SDN micro-SENSE projects were introduced by leading partners in terms of objectives, consortium, technical challenges, and next coming activities. In total, 38 representatives of the three projects participated in the workshop.

Project presentations

EnergyShield

Anna Georgiadou (NTUA) welcomed workshop participants on behalf of the EnergyShield project and presented the general collaboration concept behind this initiative: Bridging three H2020 EU projects, EnergyShield, PHOENIX and SDN-microSENSE, all funded under the SU-DS04-2018-2020 program and, consequently, sharing the same goals and vision towards Cybersecurity in the Electrical Power and Energy System (EPES).

First, Otilia Bularca (SIMAVI), as the EnergyShield Project Manager, presented the EnergyShield project including (the slides can be found here):

• General project information including budget, duration and consortium partners
• Concept and objectives
• Technical activities progress
• Toolkit architecture and overall design with details regarding each available tool
• Pilot use cases along with a comparative analysis
• Integration approach, perspectives and activities flow
• Milestones, progress and roadmap
• Project communication channels

Phoenix

Second, Farhan Sahito (Capgemini), as the Phoenix Project Coordinator, presented the PHOENIX project general information including (the slides can be found here):

• Project facts and objectives
• Consortium partners
• Large scale pilots
• Progress and expected results

Following, Theodore Zahariadis (Synelixis) proceeded in the technical presentation of the project including:

• Project approach and main goals
• Architecture design
• Core technologies and integration approach
• Pilot presentation

Closing the project presentation, Elena Sartini (CEL) briefly elaborated on the PRESS (Privacy and Data Protection, Ethics, Social and Security) Framework and its approach while sharing the resources for its analytical presentation.

microSENSE

The presentations of the projects were closed by Fernando Usero Fuentes (AYESA), as the SDN-microSENSE Project Coordinator, presented the SDN-microSENSE project general information including:

• General project information including budget, duration, and consortium partners
• Work package progress
• Objectives, challenges and expected results
• Milestones and roadmap
• Pilot use cases

Then, Panos Sarigiannidis (UOWM) proceeded in the technical presentation of the project including:

• Project approach
• Architecture design
• Operation flow
• Core technologies and implementation approach

Closing the project presentation, Theodoros Rokkas (inCITES) provided several dissemination and collaboration ideas based on previous experience and revealed a few other ongoing collaboration activities with other EU projects.

Discussion on Collaboration between Projects

The project presentations were followed by the project representatives recognizing the common goals, concepts and similar approaches embraced by the three participating projects. Ideas regarding future workshops with a more technical basis open to third parties including BRIDGE representatives or even to the end-users and public were introduced. Sharing and exchanging anonymized EPES datasets, project interconnection via common usage of the same incident report platforms, similar tool testing techniques were a few of the ideas put forward by the participants.

The Outcomes

Project partners attending the workshop agreed on the importance of sharing information and knowledge. A common dissemination approach was discussed, and some activities have been drafted:

• Join forces on social media communication channels starting from Twitter
• Create a LinkedIn group (EPES – related projects)
• Prepare common workshop/conferences involving stakeholders
• Publish whitepapers
• Share costs of booth in events
• Create a “sister projects” section on project webpages

The opportunity of organizing joint technical activities for the outside world was also put forward. Workshops or webinars potential topics:

• architecture design and integration possibilities
• data exchange/sharing and interoperability
• demonstrator and tools capabilities

To go ahead with this initiative, the creation of a board from all three projects was suggested. Thus, SIMAVI would initiate a list with persons that should be contact points for the collaboration activities.

Another proposal was related to the possibility of following up the progress of projects. Thus, from time to time selected partners (field experts) could attend significant project consortium meetings, such as review rehearsals.

As EnergyShield is the first of the participating projects to undergo a review process, it has already scheduled review rehearsal on the 29th of July. Consortium partners will be asked if they have objections against inviting external experts to attend the meeting on the 29th of July.

Next, the project partners will continue to communicate online and align the ideas on a technical workshop that would be scheduled in September – October 2020.