Idiap becomes first non-US site of the Center for Identification Technology Research

This National Science Foundation (NSF) initiative invites industry players to join forces in a cooperative effort to support and drive high quality research in biometrics and in return, to have privileged access to the developed technologies. Idiap hosts the first non-US site.

In today’s fast changing industrial environment, design and development of new technologies is crucial. Companies must keep pace with the continuous evolution and development of technology and customer preference variability. To this end, companies have to invest in research and development activities. Unfortunately, these activities mostly do not yield immediate profit or improvement and they involve higher uncertainty with respect to other company activities in operation. This is even worse for industrial fields driven by cutting-edge technology, such as biometrics business. The Center for Identification Technology Research (CITeR) initiative from the American National Science Foundation aims to overcome these issues. They succeed to gather companies and organizations such as Qualcomm, Infineon, Integrated Biometrics, Precise Biometrics, the FBI or Defense Research and Development Canada.

A Swiss site for a US initiative

Already involved with various US labs, the Swiss Center for Biometrics Research and Testing decided to strengthen its relationship with the CITeR by hosting the first non-US site of the initiative. Within the Idiap Research Institute, the Center offers biometrics and security companies the means to build strong ties with talented researchers and engineers in the field and to make recommendations and influence the course of the research projects by becoming an affiliate. The process is quite simple, as companies willing to become an affiliate only have to pay an annual administrative fee and sign a standard agreement.

Affiliates have right to delegate representatives to the Affiliate Advisory Board. This board meets on annual basis and makes recommendations on the research projects to be carried out within the Center and the allocation of resources to research proposals. Additionally, the affiliates can to obtain a worldwide, royalty-free, non-exclusive, perpetual license to the results obtained within the projects funded by the Center. Last but not least, the affiliates have the right to review publication requests of papers and presentations containing results in case the publication contains patentable results or require protection.

Already two affiliates

The Swiss site is already creating interest around major players located in Europe. The two first affiliates are SICPA and Idemia. The first one is a Swiss company among the leaders providing secured identification, traceability and authentication solutions. The second one is a French multinational company, specializing in security and identity solutions. Several companies are currently in contact with the Swiss Center for Biometrics.

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