The Center for Secure Energy Informatics (CSE) under the direction of Dominik Engel was honored at the Houska Prize 2020 award ceremony for its outstanding work.

Austria’s best research projects were awarded the renowned Houska Prize of the B&C Private Foundation on September 24, 2020. From a total of 60 submissions, top-class experts selected the winners in the categories “University Research” and “Research & Development in Small and Medium-Sized Enterprises” in a two-stage process.

Top-level research at the Center for Secure Energy Informatics

The project “Secure data protection-oriented IT architectures for future energy systems” of the Center for Secure Energy Informatics received a recognition award in the category university research.

The central subject of the project is the security and data protection of power grids. The challenge here is to harmonize data protection and IT security with the functional requirements of digital energy systems. Until now, this has not been possible with conventional IT systems. The team under the leadership of FH-Prof. Priv.-Doz. DI Mag. Dr. Dominik Engel (Salzburg University of Applied Sciences) has developed a completely new, holistic and systemic view of all interactions between providers, consumers and society. The findings of the in-depth analyses in combination with applied cryptography (data encryption) resulted in a software toolbox for industrial partners, which enables a modern and secure use of smart energy systems.

“The recognition award is a great confirmation of our research work. We are very pleased!”

Dominik Engel

With a total prize money of € 500,000, the Houska Prize is Austria’s largest private award for application-oriented research.