NEWS
Umeå University is investing in research and expertise in the area of database systems as part of the establishment of an infrastructure for federated research databases, meeting in particular the privacy and security needs for sensitive data.
“Part of our ambition is to establish a new research group in database systems, with responsibility for guiding the technology choices in the buildup of a new federated database infrastructure”, says Erik Elmroth, Professor in Computing Science.
The effort is motivated by the need for cross-database analysis for research purposes of data from autonomous and geographically distributed databases. They often contain sensitive personal information and data, implying that the result of cross-database analyses should not be, or may not be stored without being de-personalized.
“Key is the development of strong privacy and security solutions in the federated system so that personal integrity is always guaranteed”, says Anders Brändström, Professor in Historical demography.
New position
As part of this effort, Umeå University is opening an Assistant Professor position for establishing a new research group, central to the federated database infrastructure, both when it comes to research and to guiding the technology solutions, e.g., relating to privacy and security solutions. The position comes with funding to recruit a postdoc researcher and a PhD student.
This research group is important for Umeå University’s build-up a federated database infrastructure integrating major research databases at the university, like e.g. the Demograhic database, MONICA, VHU, and a number of national databases. A long-term goal is to offer federation of databases at national as well as at international level. This initiative is in line with the report that the Swedish government recently presented, where Umeå University is mentioned as a core contributor in the anticipated technology development in this area.
“The effort on a federated database infrastructure is central to Umeå University´s strategic plans and we are preparing ourselves to take a nationally and internationally leading role”, says Marianne Sommarin, Deputy Vice-Chancellor for Research at Umeå University.
