The KIOS Research and Innovation Center of Excellence at the University of Cyprus has joined the European CITADEL Range project to strengthen Europe’s cyber defence capabilities through advanced training and exercise technologies.
CITADEL Range project— Cyber Infrastructure for Training in Advanced Defence Exercises and Learning Range — funded by the European Defence Fund (EDF), aims to study, design, prototype, test, and qualify a suite of cost-effective and advanced cyber range tools and frameworks tailored to prepare the EU and its Member States’ armed forces for delivering full-spectrum cyber defence operations.
The project directly addresses key challenges in enhancing Europe’s cyber defence posture and enabling coordinated responses across Member States. While current practices largely focus on cybersecurity protection measures, operational cyber defence training remains costly and fragmented, particularly when it comes to developing high-fidelity cyber ranges. To overcome these limitations, CITADEL Range will deliver seven interoperable solutions connected through a common protocol. These solutions will integrate with existing cyber ranges rather than creating new infrastructures, thereby reducing costs while significantly improving realism, interoperability, and operational readiness.
CITADEL Range is an EU flagship large-scale project, coordinated by SIHTASUTUS CR14 (Estonia), involving 36 partners from across 19 EU Member States, including academia, industry, SMEs, NGOs, and organizations from the public and private sectors. This broad participation ensures multidisciplinary expertise and strong alignment with operational needs at both national and EU levels. The project will run for 42 months, with a total budget of more than 60 million. Moreover, more than 19 Ministries of Defence from European Countries are co-funding the project.
The project is coordinated by SIHTASUTUS CR14 (Estonia) and involves 39 partners from across Europe, including academia, industry, SMEs, NGOs, and organizations from the public and private sectors. This broad participation ensures multidisciplinary expertise and strong alignment with operational needs at both national and EU levels.
The KIOS Research and Innovation Center of Excellence at the University of Cyprus will play a crucial role in the project’s research activities, including state-of-the-art analysis and active contribution to the technical implementation of the proposed solutions. KIOS will lead significant research and development efforts in key domains such as Artificial Intelligence, and Digital Twin technologies, contributing to three of the seven pillars of the project’s overall scope. Leveraging its expertise in critical infrastructure systems and cyber-physical security and resilience, the Center will support the development of advanced, interoperable digital tools designed to enhance operational realism, strengthen coordinated cyber defence capabilities, and promote cross-border collaboration among EU Member States.
The KIOS CoE research team participating in this project consists of Professor Maria K. Michael, Dr. Christos Laoudias, Research Lecturer, Dr. Kyriakos Christou, Senior Software Engineer, Dr. Vasilis Ieropoulos, Research Associate and Theofanis Eleftheriades, Software Engineer.
Views and opinions expressed are however those of the author(s) only and do not necessarily reflect those of the European Union or the European Commission. Neither the European Union nor the granting authority can be held responsible
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