Bringing together public and private players as well as research players and leading various concrete initiatives to structure an entire ecosystem.
Defence & Security is one of the priority areas of the regional economic strategy set out in 2013. In fact, the Bretagne region is home to numerous defence sector stakeholders (annex 1) and it launched a drive in 2014 to set up a co-ordinated regional approach to its dual-use technologies which offer much scope for development.
France and Brittany face two main problems:
- Lack of graduates and trained staff in cybersecurity to address the jobs provided by the French State and industrials.
- Need of increasing the French supply of “trusted” products and services in cybersecurity
The challenges were:
- how to coordinate different stakeholders with conflicting/different interests
- how to make sure that support tools do not overlap
- how to mobilize all key elements of the value chain (SMEs, research, big firms, business support organizations,
public authorities...)
The Pole d'Excellence Cyber aims at providing solutions tackling this challenge:
- Providing a continuum between education, research and industry
- Including all main actors in the governance of the excellence cluster
- Supporting dual-use innovation by small businesses and industries
- Ensuring synergies between financing tools
Resources needed
A project leader coming from Ministry of Defence, active partners, Secondment of personnel from the companies.
Technical platforms provided by the industrial groups, communication tools.
Financial resources: thesis grant, support for technical tools, annual subscription, secondment of personnel
Evidence of success
The national cluster has received positive feedbacks:
- 30 members (11 big players like Airbus CyberSecurity, Thales, Nokia, EDF, Orange, La Poste, Atos, Naval Group) and 15 laboratories
- 4 training and research programs (industrial chairs) and a set of courses and master degrees. The numer of trained students increased to 2.800 in Bretagne
- 1.000 unique visitors have been identified for the first European Cyber Week organized in Rennes in November 2016.
Difficulties encountered
- Strategic positioning with regard to the national ecosystem: only companies which have some interest to cooperate with actorsin Bretagne are allowed to join
- Barrier due to confidentiality issues to develop common projects
- Competition between the industrial groups on several key areas
Potential for learning or transfer
One of the first actions was to define a common framework for cybersecurity in civil and military sectors. Technologies and targeted markets were outlined in a common document. A clear roadmap was also established in order to facilitate the development of research in Bretagne.
Tags: SME, Competitiveness, Cyber security, Education
