What drives PQ-NEXT from within? This time, we sat down with our partners from our research institutions to discuss their role and contributions to the PQ-NEXT project.
Let’s meet and greet the ATHENA Research Center. We will explore their background, team, and the journey that led them to PQ-NEXT.
I am Ilias Politis, a researcher at the Industrial Systems Institute (ISI) of the ATHENA Research Center in Greece. My background is in communications, networks and cybersecurity, and much of my work has focused on how we can build digital systems that are not only efficient, but also secure, resilient and trustworthy. In PQ-NEXT, I participate as Principal Investigator and leader of TAQOS Team (www.taqos.eu), our research team within ISI. TAQOS brings together people working on cybersecurity, quantum and post-quantum technologies, secure software, distributed systems and digital infrastructures. PQ-NEXT is a very natural fit for us because it brings several of these areas together. The move towards post-quantum security is not simply a cryptography problem. It affects software, networks, infrastructure and the way organisations design and maintain secure systems.
What is the role of the ATHENA Research Center within PQ-NEXT?
ATHENA is a research centre focusing on information, communication and knowledge technologies. Within ATHENA, the Industrial Systems Institute has a strong applied-research orientation, working on technologies that can eventually move from the laboratory into real systems. Our TAQOS team works across several connected areas: quantum and post-quantum engineering, cybersecurity, secure and interoperable data systems, resilient distributed systems, and secure-by-design development and validation. In PQ-NEXT, our main focus is on the transition to post-quantum security. We contribute to quantum software and post-quantum security assessment, but also to the tools and methods that can help organisations understand how to migrate their existing systems. This combination is important to us. We are interested not only in developing new technologies, but also in understanding how they can be integrated, tested and trusted in practice.
How does your work in PQ-NEXT influence your activities related to education and research on post-quantum cryptography?
ATHENA is a research centre rather than a university, so our connection with education is mainly through collaboration with universities, student supervision, research fellowships, seminars and thesis work. Projects such as PQ-NEXT give us the opportunity to bring very current research topics directly to students and young researchers. Post-quantum cryptography, quantum programming and crypto-agility are developing very quickly, so it is valuable for students to encounter them through real research problems rather than only through textbooks. This is something that is important more generally for TAQOS as well. Our work spans several emerging areas, from quantum technologies and cybersecurity to trustworthy AI and secure distributed systems, and we want young researchers to see how these fields connect to each other.
What skills do you believe today’s students should develop to be ready for the post-quantum era?
Good foundations are still the most important thing. Students need to understand cybersecurity, cryptography, networking and software engineering. But they should also become familiar with post-quantum cryptography and the basic ideas behind quantum computing. Not everyone needs to become a quantum physicist or a cryptographer, but future cybersecurity professionals should understand why quantum computing changes some of the assumptions we rely on today. I would also emphasise practical skills: programming, testing, systems integration and the ability to evaluate how a technology behaves in a real environment. Perhaps most importantly, students should learn to work across disciplines. The post-quantum transition will require people who can understand both the security problem and the systems in which the solution has to operate.
How can students participate in quantum-safe cybersecurity research at your institution, and, in particular, in the PQ-NEXT project?
There are several ways students and young researchers can become involved with us, including Master’s and PhD theses, research fellowships and positions connected with European and national research projects. Within TAQOS, the range of possible topics is quite broad. Someone may work on post-quantum cryptography and migration, quantum software, secure development, resilient networks, distributed systems or cybersecurity testing and validation. PQ-NEXT is particularly interesting because it allows young researchers to see the complete picture. They can work on a technical problem, but also understand how that work connects to larger systems and real application environments. And PQ-NEXT is not isolated within our team. TAQOS is also involved in a number of HORIZON EUROPE projects such as SecQDevOps and Q-VERSE, which address secure quantum software engineering, development workflows and quantum runtime technologies. Together, these projects create a broader research environment around quantum and post-quantum systems.
How does collaboration with industry partners within PQ-NEXT enrich your research?
For us, as a Research Centre, collaboration with industry is essential because it keeps research connected to real needs. In the laboratory, we may focus on whether a security mechanism is theoretically sound or whether a new technology works. An organisation deploying it has additional questions: How much does it cost? Does it slow the system down? Will it work with existing infrastructure? Can we migrate without interrupting important services? PQ-NEXT brings research organisations together with partners from areas such as telecommunications, finance and critical infrastructure. That interaction helps us understand where the real difficulties are. It also fits very well with the way TAQOS works. We are interested in building prototypes, architectures and validation environments that help turn research ideas into solutions that can eventually be used outside the research community.
What excites you most about the future impact of PQ-NEXT?
What I find most interesting is that PQ-NEXT looks at post-quantum security as a transition, not simply as the replacement of one cryptographic algorithm with another. Organisations first need to understand where cryptography is being used, what is at risk, what needs to change and how that change can happen safely. They then need tools for migration, testing and validation. That is also very close to the philosophy of TAQOS. We work on quantum and post-quantum engineering, but always with the wider system in mind, asking how technologies are developed, how they interact, how are they tested and how can we trust them? If PQ-NEXT can provide organisations with practical tools and methods for making that transition, while also advancing our understanding of quantum-enabled security assessment, then I think it can have an impact well beyond the project itself.