E-infrastructure is a much-anticipated project that concerns developing and coordinating research data and making it accessible to our researchers. The work is now proceeding in areas such as hardware and software for the storage and sharing of research data. This has been long-awaited, and the idea is that most services will be provided free of charge to the University’s researchers. It covers much more than just offering storage space.
Emilie Stroh, a researcher at the Faculty of Medicine, took over as project manager on 1 January. With her extensive background in research, she will lead the project through the build-up phase. To further strengthen the researcher perspective, we have also established a reference group that will act as a sounding board during the process.
The project will coordinate and make accessible services, support and expert functions that in many cases are already in place at the University, for example at IT units, libraries, data protection, archives and information security. But, it must be easier to find your way. We will guide researchers in the right direction to the right expertise through clear information and simple contact channels.
The e-infrastructure project must, just like the rest of us, relate to information and IT security. Sweden’s higher education institutions received scathing criticism from the Swedish National Audit Office on this issue in the autumn and we must improve. The recent ransomware attack on Tietoevry, which made Primula inaccessible, is a wake-up call.
Since 1 January, responsibility for information security and the role of chief information security officer (CISO) have rested with Fredrik Bexell, head of office for Security and Environment at LU Estates.
The aim of the change is to bring together the administration’s security management and enable information security to be incorporated and coordinated in a natural way with our other security matters such as physical security and staff security.
The reorganisation will mean a partial restart for information security management. The focus will be on giving the organisational units tools to enable them to assume responsibility for and conduct their information security management in a systematic and consistent way. Initially, there will be a learning process based on how the data protection team and its network have worked. Information security and data protection are adjacent to each other and are deemed to complement and support each other in a good way.
Two information security coordinators have been recruited and they will reinforce the work with their valuable expertise during the spring.
/ Viktor Öwall
