Professor Marios Polycarpou, Director of the KIOS Research Center for Intelligent Systems and Networks at the University of Cyprus, has been awarded the ERC Advanced Grant, the most prestigious research funding award given by the European Research Council (ERC). The ERC Advanced Grant provides attractive long-term research funding to a small number of exceptional researchers to undertake highly ambitious, pioneering and unconventional research projects at the frontiers of their fields. According to the official web site for the programme, (http://erc.europa.eu/advanced-grants), the main aim of ERC Advanced Grants is to allow exceptional established research leaders to pursue ground-breaking, high-risk projects that open new directions in their respective research fields or other domains.
The ERC Advanced Grant awarded to Prof. M. Polycarpou attests to his excellent international academic standing and impressive research contributions. It is also an honour for the University of Cyprus, to be hosting this unique research activity, and a testament to the University of Cyprus outstanding reputation for research excellence. Each year, ERC Advanced Grants are awarded, on average to 8 scientists in all areas of Electrical and Computer Engineering, following an extremely competitive selection process. To date several awards have been granted to scientists from countries such as Germany, France and the UK. This is the first time that a Cypriot scientist has been granted an ERC Advanced Grant.
The research grant of over €2 million will finance a team of about 10 researchers at the University of Cyprus, who will pursue pioneering fundamental research aimed at designing and analyzing “smart” algorithms for real-time data processing, capable of improving the performance and fault tolerance of critical infrastructures such as power distribution systems, drinking and waste water systems and transportation networks. More specifically, Professor Polycarpou’s research team, will develop tools and design methodologies that would facilitate early detection and accommodation of any “small” faults or unexpected events, before they cause significant disruption or complete system failures in complex distributed dynamical systems.
Dr. Marios Polycarpou is a Professor of Electrical and Computer Engineering at the University of Cyprus and Director of the KIOS Research Center. Professor Polycarpou returned to Cyprus in 2001, following a long academic career in the USA, to assist with the creation of the School of Engineering at the University of Cyprus. Between 2001-2008, he served as Chairman of the Electrical and Computer Engineering Department. He is currently serving a 2-year term as the President of the IEEE Computational Intelligence Society, the most prestigious international technical organization in the area of computational intelligence.
This is the 4th ERC grant awarded to the University of Cyprus. This particular ERC award is an Advanced Grant, which is aimed for experienced researchers. Previously, the University was awarded 3 ERC Starting Grants which are geared towards researchers in the early stages of their academic careers. In total, the University of Cyprus has received €4.5 million research funding from ERC Grants.
