IICREST (Interdisciplinary Institute for Collaboration and Research on Enterprise Systems and Technology) is an international IT institute domiciled in Bulgaria. It conducts research on the modeling of enterprises and the design of advanced ICT systems supporting them, focusing on applications in a variety of application domains. IICREST aims as well at disseminating knowledge in the mentioned areas.
IICREST is an independent organization in the form of an NGO and is therefore in a position to offer an objective unbiased opinion in the evaluation of needs, study of requirements, organization of the working teams and implementation of new services and technologies, outside political and economic influences. For this IICREST draws expertise from key academic/public figures not only from Bulgaria but also from its extended network to Greece, Portugal, Switzerland, and The Netherlands.
And in particular, the
mission of IICREST is to be an internationally acknowledged interdisciplinary research and knowledge transfer institute in the area of design (and development) of automated (software) systems and their application in domains of high societal relevance, rooting this in proper enterprise models. Hence, among the institute’s strategic goals are envisioned the following:
• To advance interdisciplinary research in enterprise systems and their related technological support systems, through possible funding from EU and other sources
• To disseminate relevant knowledge among academia and business in different European countries, through scientific events, such as conferences and workshops
• To provide advice and consultancy services.
IICREST is being led by its Chairman,
Dr. Boris Shishkov. Among the other key participants in IICREST are the former Bulgarian Foreign Minister of Bulgaria and current Vice-President of the Bulgarian Parliament, Mrs. N. Mihaylova, the outstanding Bulgarian Professor – M. Konstantinov, as well as distinguished academicians from different European countries, such as Prof. Dr. J. Filipe (Portugal), Prof. Dr. D. Konstantas (Switzerland), Assoc. Prof. Dr. M. van Sinderen (The Netherlands), and Assoc. Prof. Dr. D. Mitrakos (Greece), who are all members of the
IICREST Board.
The research orientation of IICREST concerns three strategic research areas, namely: (i) Enterprise systems and aligned IT services; (ii) High-speed and media-rich networking; (iii) Enterprise optimization and applied numerical methods, as well as five strategic application domains, namely a) Wellbeing; b) Finance; c) Transport; d) Education; e) Environment. Topics of interest in more detail:
ENTERPRISE SYSTEMS AND ALIGNED IT SERVICES
- business modeling
- enterprise service architectures
- inter-enterprise collaboration
- enterprise interoperability
- business-IT alignment
- enterprise application modeling
- model-driven development
- service-oriented infrastructures
- virtualization and integration approaches
- monitoring and self-adaptation approaches
- domain-specific applications
HIGH-SPEED AND MEDIA-RICH NETWORKING
- audio/video streaming
- IPv6 infrastructures
- media search and retrieval
ENTERPRISE OPTIMIZATION AND APPLIED NUMERICAL METHODS
- numerical methods in system design
- enterprise data analysis
- quantitative methods in information systems
- formal support for enterprise simulation.
IICREST organizes an annual event, namely I-WEST (International Workshop on Enterprise Systems and Technology). I-WEST aims at providing a platform to researchers from academia and industry for discussing challenges, solutions, ideas and experiences related to the broad field of enterprise systems and technology. In addition, IICREST supports the following conferences and related satellite events, organized by INSTICC:
== ICSOFT (International Conference on Software and Data Technologies)
---- EHST (International Workshop on e-Health Services and Technologies)
== CSEDU (International Conference on Computer-Supported Education)
IICREST has established official partnership with universities, such as the University of Craiova (Software Engineering Department) and University of Geneva (Faculty of Business Administration), associations, such as INSTICC (Portugal) and Union of SME Bulgaria, and research centers, such as CERTH (Greece).