CaixaBank and La Salle-URL, together with a group of universities and organizations from the European Union, have started a project to define an international competency framework for future cybersecurity professionals. This is the REWIRE project, which has been chosen by the European Union to receive funding from the Erasmus+ programme. In this way, the results of this research will contribute to defining the training itineraries, skills and competencies that students who choose cybersecurity must have to develop their professional career. REWIRE has the support of the Agència de Ciberseguretat de Catalunya, which is an active member of the project's Expert Advisory Council.
The objective is that this study serves to identify the key stakeholders from all possible points of view and fields, as well as to provide an interactive, publicly available tool that contains the information and professional orientation necessary for professionals and students who evaluate a career in this field. By incorporating both private companies and universities and institutions, the program will help improve cybersecurity-related job descriptions. It will also serve educational entities to improve the curricular designs of their training offer. Likewise, the design of this competency framework will help both students and existing professionals who need to improve their skills, retrain or change career directions.
Bringing the academic environment closer to business needs
The report prepared by the REWIRE consortium is presented within the framework of the Barcelona Cybersecurity Congress (BCC), an international congress focused on cybersecurity that is held from January 31 to February 2 and is organized by Fira de Barcelona and the Agència de Cybersecurity of Catalonia. The congress addresses the need to increase security in all sectors to avoid or minimize the effects of an attack by cybercriminals, and has the participation of La Salle-URL as the only ambassador university.
During the session, the CyberRange initiative is also presented, an open source platform promoted by the Agència de Ciberseguretat de Catalunya to facilitate the development of cyber exercises in Catalonia in which to test knowledge and skills acquired and aligned with the objectives of REWIRE. It is a document that contains a framework of specific skills, describes the various professional profiles and identifies relevant knowledge that cybersecurity specialists must have. In addition, it analyzes the labor market and labor demand in this matter.
CaixaBank collaborates in the consortium as an industrial partner and validates that the contents make sense in the real application in a company. La Salle-URL is the other Spanish partner in the project, which participates as cybersecurity experts, leading the work package in charge of creating tools connected to training and certification. Along with them, 23 other European universities and companies have participated in the REWIRE project, collaborating to bring the academic environment closer to business needs in this area.