The European project Spirs is developing affordable hardware-based solutions to enhance security against cyber attacks for small and medium-sized enterprises, allowing them to incorporate these measures into their devices without a significant increase in the final price. The aim is to provide high-security solutions, even for systems with limited resources, such as IoT (Internet of Things) devices. These latter, often wearables, face strict constraints in terms of size and weight.

The main objective is to ensure the safety of citizens from existing and future telecommunications technologies based on electromagnetic fields. They have developed software to model the distribution of electromagnetic fields in organisms and predict their impact on the body. By means of biological experiments, scientists study the effects of radio frequency exposure on proteins, cells and organisms, and also are developing portable sensors to measure intensity of electromagnetic fields. Fifteen months after the start of the project, which involves the ICMAB-CSIC, the participants have met in Greece to show the first results.

This CSIC initiative is a space for scientists, companies and social agents to innovate and co-create. It has four programmes: an open innovation programme that fosters collaboration between companies and research centres; a programme to identify and accelerate projects for the creation of new companies; a space for sharing R&D&I needs and challenges in the field of public services and public procurement of innovation; and a programme for the creation of chairs as a way for companies to sponsor CSIC research lines.

The CSIC's Institute of Microelectronics of Barcelona (IMB-CNM) leads the technical section of the development of a software that will allow access to the information stored in a chip. The objective of the ForRES project, financed with more than 2 million euros, is to improve the digital forensic analysis of electronic devices.

The European H2020 project NL4XAI addresses the question of how the quality of algorithms in the emerging field of Explainable Artificial Intelligence (XAI), i.e. machines capable of justifying and reasoning their decisions, should be assessed. The aim is to train the first generation of experts in this field.

The prototype, a 10 kW redox flow battery demonstrator, paves the way towards a 50 kW flow battery. It has been developed by CSIC's PTI TrasnEner+ Interdisciplinary Thematic Platform, which is working to develop large-scale energy storage technologies for stationary applications.

The SENIX project, with the participation of the Institute of Microelectronics of Barcelona (IMB-CNM-CSIC, by its Spanish acronym), has created several solutions for the development of micro and nanoelectronic systems and platforms to improve the management of water and gas distribution networks.

Current electronic components and systems (ECS) are becoming more compact and complex every day, thus making more difficult to face the reliability analysis in them. Now, it is required to follow a holistic approach through the entire value chain of an ECS product, such as the material, chip, packaging and system. During 3 years, iRel40 will connect 75 institutions from 13 European countries, including the Institute of Microelectronics of Barcelona through the Power Devices and Systems Group.