Research focus
In accordance with the proposals of the White Paper on Defence and National Security, ANSSI plays a role in steering French and European cybersecurity research.
Until 2009, ANSSI presided over an inter-ministerial working group created to issue a bi-annual report on the steering of research and development work in the field of cybersecurity. Following the strategic reorientation of ANSSI’s activities, this steering work is undertaken within other structures.
ANSSI has been involved in the process of formulating a national research strategy (stratégie nationale de recherche – NRS), primarily on security issues. It has also played a role in the programming of the National Research Agency (Agence nationale de la recherche – ANR) and participates in the scientific steering committees and financing of the two major societal challenges of the programme in relation to security.
In addition to this work and its contributions to the steering of research, the Agency is involved at the technical level in a number of ANR projects in a range of fields (embedded systems security, cryptographic primitives security, etc.). Furthermore, in 2009 and 2010 it presided over the ANR’s SEC&SI challenge in which three research teams went head-to-head to create a secured compartmentalised operating system for Internet users.
ANSSI also supports calls for projects by the Investment for the Future programme for the digital economy (programme d’investissement d’avenir dans l’économie numérique) on security issues. It oversees the “Cybersecurity” plan, identified within the framework of 34 plans announced by the President of the Republic to outline the future of French industry. These plans incorporate a research component.
At European level, ANSSI participates in the definition of national priorities that are submitted to the European Commission in order to draft calls for projects within the framework of the EU Research and Innovation programme (Horizon 2020). It plays a role in the consultative committees for these projects, where such cooperation will enable work on the solutions under study to be better adapted and more effective.