ACCESS LINNAEUS CENTER
KTH Linnaeus Center for
Autonomic Complex Communication
Networks, Signals and Systems
www.access.ee.kth.se
Evaluation Report
prepared for
Swedish Research Council
Table of Contents
Executive summary ................................................................................................................................. 1
Questions to the Vice Chancellor of KTH .............................................................................................. 1
Questions to the Coordinator of ACCESS .............................................................................................. 4
Research performed and planned ............................................................................................................ 5
Collaboration ......................................................................................................................................... 12
External communication and dissemination .......................................................................................... 14
Participating personnel .......................................................................................................................... 16
Organization and leadership .................................................................................................................. 17
Budget and financing............................................................................................................................. 17
Appendix 1: 20 selected publications
Appendix 2: CV and list of publications for 15 researchers
Appendix 3: Participants in the Linnaeus environment
Appendix 4: Organizational chart
Appendix 5: Economic report
Appendix 6: Financial plan
Executive summary
The ACCESS Linnaeus Center was established at KTH in 2006 thanks to a ten-year grant
awarded by the Swedish Research Council. In an interdisciplinary research program, the
Center develops fundamental principles for the design and engineering of complex
communication networks and systems. The ACCESS Center has enabled important research
breakthroughs, and the scientific recognition of the ACCESS environment has increased
significantly. The ACCESS Center grant has provided the stability and cohesion necessary to
successfully integrate our research efforts into a greater context through novel collaborations,
international networking, branding and outreach, while simultaneously facilitating and
strengthening recruitment and renewal. ACCESS has grown to encompass 35 faculty
members and 15 postdocs. The ACCESS Graduate School has about 100 PhD students,
participating in an entire set of new PhD courses. ACCESS has developed into one of KTH’s
strategically most important efforts, and has been instrumental for KTH being awarded
several major national and international research grants such as National Strategic Research
Areas, EIT ICT Labs, ERC Advanced Grants and others. The total annual funding aligned
with the ACCESS research program is now close to 100 MSEK, including the Linnaeus Grant
and grants awarded to ACCESS faculty members. Many of these projects build upon research
collaborations initiated within ACCESS. The Center also plays an important role in improving
the gender balance in its field, and has for instance supported the recruitment of three new
female faculty members on a high international level. ACCESS has implemented an
ambitious program for dissemination and communication, which for instance has led to
regular appearances in national media, several national and international workshops and
conferences, and the ACCESS Distinguished Lecture Series with more than fifty worldrenowned visiting scientists.
Questions to the Vice Chancellor of KTH
Development since last evaluation
1a. Since the first evaluation of the Linnaeus Grants (after 1.5 years), have there been any
changes in: the organization and management of the Linnaeus environment in the university?
If yes, please describe and comment.
The basic organization of the ACCESS Linnaeus Center remains the same and follows the
well-established format of Centers at KTH, while several positions in the management have
been changed. The organizational chart is shown in Appendix 4. Prof. Gunnar Landgren,
Node Director EIT ICT Labs and Advisor to the President, has replaced Prof. Peter
Gudmundson, President of KTH, as Chairman of the ACCESS Board. Christer Norström has
replaced Staffan Truve as Board Member, as a consequence of the corresponding replacement
as CEO of the Swedish Institute of Computer Science. Prof. Karl H. Johansson has replaced
Prof. Björn Ottersten as the Director of ACCESS as a consequence of Prof Ottersten’s
international appointment, and Prof. Erik Aurell took over the role as Vice Director. Dr. Sonja
Buchegger will serve as Vice Director from Jan 2012. Profs. Peter Händel, Mikael Johansson,
and Rolf Stadler are new Thematic Area Leaders and thus new members of the ACCESS
Executive Committee. A Public Relations Officer position was established and Mrs Marie
Androv holds this part-time appointment since 2009. Ms Kristina Gustafsson serves as
administrative and economic assistant.
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1b. Since the first evaluation of the Linnaeus Grants (after 1.5 years), have there been any
changes in: how the Linnaeus environment interacts with other research areas and research
groups within your university? Any new synergistic effects? If yes, please describe and
comment.
ACCESS focuses on basic research problems in communication and networked systems. The
importance of such systems in other scientific- and application domains is growing
tremendously. Consequently, interactions and collaborations between ACCESS and other
research environments at KTH have grown considerably in the last few years and we start to
see several synergistic effects. These application projects do not only lead to the transition of
research results to new domains, but they are influencing the fundamental research questions
within the core scientific areas of ACCESS. As an example of new interactions being
established over the last few years, ACCESS has built up a strong collaboration with KTH
centers and research groups in transportation and vehicular engineering within the area of
Intelligent Transportation Systems with several new ongoing research projects. Another
example of new interactions that have been established with KTH research groups is in
energy and power systems within the emerging area of Smart Grid. Here, projects on the
future communication and control architecture for a resilient energy infrastructure are
ongoing. Thanks to these new ACCESS collaborations, KTH has been able to strengthen its
position for large national and European grants, such as EIT ICT Labs and InnoEnergy to be
further discussed below.
National and international importance of ACCESS
2. How important is the Linnaeus environment for national and international collaboration
involving the university?
ACCESS represents one of KTH’s strategically most important efforts. One third of KTH’s
research is in the area of Information and Communication Technology and within this area
ACCESS has established itself as KTH’s dominating research constellation. ACCESS plays a
key role in several major national and international initiatives. Here, we limit the discussion to
the two most important such initiatives. The Swedish Government designated twenty strategic
research areas in the Government Bill on Research Policy 2009. A consortium led by KTH,
involving also Stockholm University, SICS and ACREO, was awarded the winning grant in
IT and Mobile Communications. The project, denoted ICT the Next Generation (TNG), has
an annual budget of about 33 MSEK and is focused on renewing the KTH faculty by
establishing start-up grants for new positions in critical areas and novel collaborations. So far,
seven new tenure track positions have been filled out, of which four have become ACCESS
faculty members (Carlo Fischione, Supriya Krishnamurthy, Tobias Oechtering, and
Alexandre Proutiere), all with international degrees and excellent initial conditions. Out of
twelve inter-disciplinary research projects supported by TNG, ACCESS researchers are
involved in eight and are project leaders of five. These projects have initiated many new
collaborations within KTH and with SICS, and they support in many cases postdocs
participating in ACCESS research.
Within the EU cooperation project entitled European Institute of Innovation and Technology
(EIT), three Knowledge and Innovation Communities (KIC’s) have been started up 2010.
KTH is involved in two KIC’s: ICT Labs, on the future information and communication
society, and InnoEnergy, on the European energy system. A KIC is a long-term investment
for at least a period of 7–15 years with a substantial financial base. ACCESS plays an
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important role particularly in EIT ICT Labs, which involves universities, institutes, and
industry in five European cities (Berlin, Eindhoven, Helsinki, Paris, and Stockholm). The goal
of EIT ICT Labs is to bring more innovation to market by connecting excellent European
organizations. EIT ICT Labs is an excellent platform not only for new international ACCESS
collaborations, but also to disseminate and commercialize ACCESS research results.
Examples of EIT ICT Labs projects with ACCESS participation include cloud computing,
intelligent transportation, and smart energy systems. ACCESS is also heavily involved in
shaping the future international graduate and PhD programs within EIT ICT Labs.
Collaboration between KTH and ACCESS
3. If your university has more than one Linnaeus environment, has there been any
collaboration between them?
KTH has two Linnaeus Centers in addition to ACCESS: the Linnaeus Flow Centre (FLOW)
and the Linnaeus Centre for Advanced Optics and Photonics (ADOPT). The interaction
between the centers is mainly on an overall strategic level, as the centers research foci are
very different. Researchers of ADOPT is involved in the strategic research area TNG on IT
and Mobile Communication mentioned above.
KTH gender policies and their implementation in ACCESS
4. What university policies address the gender profile of the group involved in the Linnaeus
environment – particularly policies related to leadership? How have these policies been
implemented?
The KTH Strategic Plan 2009-2012, KTH in the service of humanity, for the society of
tomorrow, states that diversity based on gender, ethnicity, and culture is a valuable resource
for both the university and for technical development in general. KTH has developed an
action plan, One KTH for Everyone—equal conditions for all students and employees.
ACCESS supports the KTH strategic plan and the action plan for gender equality, diversity
and equal opportunity activities. Several initiatives and decisions have been taken by the
Center to fulfill the goals of these plans. Recruitment of women has increased, from an allmale start of ACCESS in 2006 to three female ACCESS faculty members in 2011: Drs. Sonja
Buchegger, Viktoria Fodor, and Supriya Krishnamurthy. These members have been granted
VR Young Researcher Awards, Future Research Leader Award from the Strategic Research
Foundation, KTH Startup grants etc. ACCESS has attracted women for a KTH guest
professorship (Prof. Maria G. Papadopouli, University of Crete) and the VR Tage Erlander
Professorship (Prof. Claire Tomlin, UC Berkeley). The five-member ACCESS Scientific
Advisory Board includes Profs. Marta Kwiatkowska (University of Oxford), Radia Perlman
(Intel), and Claire Tomlin (UC Berkeley). The Executive Committee has two female members
from 2012. The participation of women in the ACCESS Distinguished Lecture Series (DLS)
has increased over the last two years. A recent initiative is to try to increase the recruitment of
female post-doctoral scholars, by doubling the funding support from ACCESS for female
candidates. A special support for junior faculty taking parental leave have been introduced by
the School of Electrical Engineering, which provides the researcher with a 300K SEK grant
for a strong start when returning from leave. While there have been good results from
measures aimed at increasing gender equality in ACCESS, this effort needs to and will be
sustained, especially given the obstacle of low base rates (less than 15%) of female
participation in the corresponding undergraduate disciplines: Computer Science and Electrical
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Engineering. Concerning ethnic and cultural diversity, ACCESS is a very international
environment, bringing together researchers of a large variety of backgrounds.
ACCESS influence on KTH strategies
5. Has the Linnaeus Grant influenced the strategic priorities of the university? If so, in what
way?
ACCESS is very important for KTH’s strategic priorities. KTH introduced 2009 five strategic
cross-disciplinary research platforms as a tool aimed at gathering together KTH researchers,
more clearly demonstrating KTH strengths and becoming a more interesting partner for
external cooperation. ACCESS is particularly active in three of these platforms: ICT,
Transport, and Energy. ACCESS takes a natural leading role of the ICT platform as being the
largest constellation of ICT researchers at KTH. The platforms will maintain, with support
from external stakeholders, strategic monitoring processes that encompass both future
research challenges and political issues within each area. The platforms play an advisory role
as concerns future investments in their fields of expertise. Within especially the ICT platform,
ACCESS is helping to shape the future of the university’s research program in the area.
ACCESS structural importance on KTH
6. Has the Linnaeus Grant had any structural impact on the university-wide level? If so, in
what way?
ACCESS spans three of KTH’s ten Schools: School of Electrical Engineering, School of
Computer Science and Communication, and School of Engineering Sciences (Mathematics).
No direct structural change has followed as a consequence of ACCESS, but the collaborations
in both research and education has improved considerably thanks to the establishment of the
Center.
Questions to the Coordinator of ACCESS
Actions taken on recommendations by the 2008 evaluation panel
7. Please comment on how the recommendations (if any) from the evaluation panel
conducting the first evaluation (in 2008) have been taken into consideration.
The evaluation panel 2008 gave very positive comments and did not specify any
recommendations in their evaluation report.
8. Provide the website address of the Linnaeus environment, and indicate how often the
information on the website is updated.
The ACCESS website is available at http://www.access.kth.se. It provides a comprehensive
description of research activities, graduate school, organized events, etc. The website is also
an important way for ACCESS to communicate to the general public a popular presentation of
some of the research results and their impact on society as well as videos (and live streaming)
of ACCESS Distinguished Lecture Series. The website has an average of around 1000 visitors
per month, of which 38 percent are new visitors. The Distinguished Lecture Series stands for
12 percent of all the visitors. An average of 115 visitors per video has watched the lectures
live since the start in January 2010. More than 20 percent of these visitors are new. Popular
pages for external visitors are also the news feed. The Internal Seminar Series and the internal
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ACCESS website attract many local (and returning) visitors. The information on the websites
is continuously updated as they are a crucial medium for ACCESS internal and external
communications.
Research performed and planned
ACCESS develops fundamental principles for the design and engineering of complex
communication networks and systems. Interdisciplinary research is carried out targeting
enabling technologies that provide reliable services and applications over scalable,
heterogeneous, and dynamic networks. The ACCESS research program is organized
according to the four-layer model illustrated in Figure 1. The research is coordinated through
four interdisciplinary Thematic Areas: Sensing & Actuation, Transmission & Radio,
Architectures & Concepts, and Computation & Algorithms. (The names of the Thematic
Areas have been updated since first evaluation, but the organization remains.) The ACCESS
faculty members have their disciplinary residency in one of the indicated areas and they
typically belong to one or two Thematic Areas. The research is performed in short- and longterm projects, which are either ACCESS internal collaborative projects or application
projects. The collaborative projects focus on fundamental research problems and involve in
most cases two or more ACCESS faculty members together with ACCESS postdocs and
graduate students. One particular type of collaborative projects shown to be very successful
are the ACCESS Seed Projects, which are two-year projects focusing on emerging crossdisciplinary research problems and led by junior ACCESS faculty. The transitional
application projects are often done in collaboration with industry and research groups outside
ACCESS. These projects, which typically have their core funding from other research
agencies or companies, are an important mean to reach out with basic ACCESS research
results to application domains.
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Figure 1: ACCESS is organized in four inter-disciplinary Thematic Areas with members from several of the underlying
disciplines. Each collaborative project is performed within one or more Thematic Areas. The application projects are
often done in collaboration with external researchers and stakeholders. Examples of projects are shown in the upper two
layers.
Significant results
9a. Describe the most significant results of the research performed since the start of the
Linnaeus Grant, including development of new method
As the ACCESS research outcome has grown to more than 200 journals and conference
papers per year (232 papers in the ACCESS database for 2010), it is obviously hard to single
out just a few key results. To highlight our research, we will discuss in the following, four
fields of contribution that we think illustrate particularly well the width and depth of our
activities at the international forefront. These efforts have all involved ACCESS faculty
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members, postdocs, PhD students, visitors, and have been published in various forms. The
references refer to the publications in Appendix 1.
ACCESS researchers have made fundamental contributions to the understanding of spectral
estimation and system identification. New properties of the generalized moment problem have
been derived [Byrnes and Lindquist, 2008]. The solution has been presented in several invited
plenary talks, including IFAC World Congress 2011. The work also includes new applications
in speech processing (Lindquist, Kleijn and co-workers). ACCESS faculty Prof. Anders
Lindquist received the 2009 SIAM W.T. and Idalia Reid Prize partially for these results. How
to estimate of covariance matrices with Kronecker product structure was presented in [Werner
et al., 2008]. The cost of complexity for frequency function estimation was derived in [Rojas
et al., 2010] and part of the European Control Conference 2009 plenary presented by Prof.
Håkan Hjalmarsson. A European Research Council Advanced Investigator Grant was
awarded partially for this work.
Significant results have also been achieved in the area of sensor and actuator networks. A new
algorithm for distributed estimation in wireless sensor networks was developed in
collaboration with UC Berkeley [Speranzon et al., 2008]. In particular, how to distribute a
minimum variance criterion was considered. One of the researchers, Dr. Carlo Fischione,
previously postdoc at UC Berkeley, is now a member of the ACCESS faculty. The related
problem on how to distribute an optimization criterion over a network was shown in
[Johansson et al., 2009]. Here a new incremental sub-gradient optimization algorithm was
studied and it was shown how the underlying network topology influences the convergence
rate of the algorithm. The study of stochastic optimal control over communication channels
with limited data-rate requires knowledge from both communication and control. ACCESS
has provided such an inter-disciplinary environment and a significant result on such a problem
was given in [Bao et al., 2011], where the problem of encoder-controller design for feedback
control over noisy channels was solved. These results in sensor and actuator networks have
achieved substantial international recognition, as well as major research awards and grants,
such as a Wallenberg Scholar Award, Major Research Council grants, Strategic Research
Foundation grants and several European Framework Program grants.
ACCESS researchers have made pioneering contributions to multiple-input multiple-output
(MIMO) antenna techniques for mobile communication, and more recently to the evolution
of distributed and cooperative wireless transmission. One important research topic in
particular in the past five years, which has sprung out of new research collaborations, has
been the investigation of the role of feedback for MIMO and wireless transmission. A new
approach based on using channel norm feedback was considered in [Hammarwall et al.,
2008]. ACCESS researchers have also shown that a trade-off in MIMO channels between
multiplexing gain (higher throughput) and diversity (lower error probability) can be greatly
improved by a few bits feedback on the quality of the channel [Kim and Skoglund, 2007]. A
related problem on the design of linear MIMO transceivers based on partial channel state
information feedback was also considered in [Zhang et al., 2008]. In addition, these results
have led to the development of experimental platforms with long-term industrial involvement.
These results have received extensive international recognition, including a European
Research Council Advanced Investigator Grant on agile MIMO systems.
Our research in network management is mainly motivated by the Internet and the fact that it
is, to great extent, a self-organized system without central control. Its protocols can on
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different levels sometimes be been seen to exercise distributed control, but have in generally
been invented to solve particular problems in a fast and robust manner. As the number of
services in IP networks continues to grow, the need for new inventions and to better
understand those we have is a permanent issue. ACCESS faculty members and collaborators
have invented a tree-based aggregations scheme, and have compared this scheme to gossiping
[Wuhib et al., 2009]. A key finding is that tree-based aggregation outperforms gossiping in
simulations, in terms of both accuracy and robustness. ACCESS faculty has further pioneered
the analysis of large distributed systems in dynamic environments [Krishnamurthy et al.,
2008]. This methodology, which has also been applied to tree-based aggregation, uses the
master equation of chemical physics to quantitatively model the states in the distributed
system and how these states change over time. The key technical insight that makes this
analysis both computationally feasible and accurate is that in many large systems every
element interacts with many others such that mean-field arguments can be used and
fluctuations ignored.
Dissemination and impact
9b. Describe how the results from the Linnaeus environment have been disseminated, and
describe the impact these results have had in the research community.
The most important dissemination of ACCESS research results is through publications in
archival journals and conference proceedings. The total number of ACCESS publications is
more than 200 papers per year, all available through the ACCESS database linked on the
homepage. Another important forum for dissemination is the large number of keynote and
invited talks given by ACCESS researchers. ACCESS has also been very much involved in
organizing conferences and workshops; both large international meetings as well as national
events targeting mainly local stakeholders and partners: ACCESS organized the ACM/IEEE
Cyber-Physical Systems Week (CPSWEEK) 2010 at KTH with almost 600 participants.
ACCESS has also organized road-mapping events such as the EU-US Workshop on
Networked Information and Control Systems 2008 supported by EU and NSF. ACCESS has
collaborated with the Linnaeus Center CADICS in organizing annual workshops on indoor
navigation. Other events focused on specific topics include the Conference in Statistical
Mechanics of Game Theory 2009 and the ACCESS-EKC2 Smart Grids Workshop 2011.
ACCESS has also organized two industrial workshops intended to reach out with research
results to existing and future stakeholders. Furthermore, in 2011 ACCESS arranged the first
annual Swedish Communication Technologies Workshop (Swe-CTW), with international
participation and peer-review process.
The impact of the ACCESS research is measured through citations, but also other means of
use of methods through software and tools. According to a survey made by the KTH Library
based on the ISI WoS database (ordered by the KTH School for Electrical Engineering) the
ACCESS environment achieves a normalized citation score of 1.7, which is roughly 50%
higher than the corresponding overall score for KTH in general. In Appendix 1 we list twenty
selected publications and describe what impact these results have had and how they relate to
the ACCESS research program.
ACCESS compared to an international frontier
9c. Describe briefly the development and standing of the research compared to research
performed internationally.
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ACCESS is today the largest and leading research center in its field in Europe, judged by
overall publication output, breadth of topics and areas covered, and by the number of younger
researchers having joined the center since it started. Recruitment and renewal of non-Swedish
researchers on all levels have been an especially strong point for ACCESS, showing the
competitiveness and attractiveness of the ACCESS environment. Compared to leading centers
in the world, such as the Center for Information Technology Research in the Interest of
Society (UC Berkeley) and the Coordinated Science Laboratory (UI Urbana-Champaign),
ACCESS has a lower funding base and has existed for a shorter period of time. The
development for ACCESS during 2006-2011 has however in relative terms been extremely
positive: new research constellations being able to generate world-class results, more than
doubled overall project portfolio, high attractiveness for international recruitment and
exchanges etc.
Added value of the Linnaeus Grant to the ACCESS research group
9d. Describe the added value of the Linnaeus Grant. Comment on effects of this type of
funding.
The main added value of the ACCESS Linnaeus Grant has been as an enabler for new
research collaboration within KTH and for the recruitment of new faculty members and
postdocs. Figure 2 illustrates how the research collaboration among ACCESS faculty
members has grown from the five-year period before ACCESS till the five-year period of
ACCESS collaborations, measured in joint authorship of publications. Note that ACCESS has
contributed substantially to both the number of joint papers as well as to the recruitment of
new junior faculty members. Several new collaborations have been started between KTH
research groups, which had not collaborated before, and would very likely not have done so
without ACCESS. Several concrete examples are presented in the list of twenty selected
publications (Appendix 1) and in the publication lists (Appendix 2). The stable and long-term
funding from the Linnaeus Grant has been extremely important to establish and maintain such
a considerable research environment. ACCESS has also provided an added value for
researchers and research groups to present a larger image outside KTH, facilitating
recruitment of postdocs, and mechanisms to attract leading scientists to KTH as guest
professors and guest lecturers (ACCESS Distinguished Lecturer Series). The ACCESS
Mobility Grants have been important to attract top international researchers to KTH as well as
to provide co-support for ACCESS faculty members’ research stays at foreign institutions.
In ACCESS, the positive effects of the Linnaeus grant funding have been enforced by how the
Thematic Area research funds have been used. The stable funding has been distributed to
ACCESS faculty if and when they chose to participate in collaborative projects with other
ACCESS faculty, with clear objectives as to joint co-publications, and with follow-up and
evaluation by ACCESS management. It is our firm impression that the mere fact of writing a
first paper with a colleague engenders a deeper understanding of that colleague's viewpoint
and tools, and so leads to an enlarged common focus, and there from on to more and often
better papers. In short, we find that ACCESS policy of setting hard and quantifiable
objectives for our internal collaborative work and backing those up with financial incentives
has been an effective means to start new and interdisciplinary research.
ACCESS has been a catalyst for generating new collaborating projects with support from
external funding agencies. For 2008 ACCESS faculty members had about 30 MSEK in
external funding, while in 2010 the external funding had grown to almost 100 MSEK. Much
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of this growth related to new collaborative projects involving several ACCESS faculty
members and funded by EU, VINNOVA, and SSF. A substantial part of the growth is
individual grants, indicating for example that every recruited ACCESS faculty members has
succeeded in getting an individual grant from VR. ACCESS faculty has also succeeded in
receiving some of the most competitive individual grants from ERC, Knut and Alice
Wallenberg Foundation, and SSF.
Figure 2: ACCESS has resulted in extensive new inter-disciplinary research results and collaborations. The nodes of the
left graph indicate the ACCESS founding faculty members in 2006 and the edges joint authorships of their publications
2000-2005. The right graph indicates the status 2011 with the nodes being the ACCESS faculty members and the edges
their joint publications 2006-2011.
Research plan for the remaining period
9e. Describe briefly the research planned for the remaining period. What changes have been
made compared to the original plan?
ACCESS is structured into the four Thematic Areas, as shown in Figure 1, all of them
grouping different disciplinary competences into a broad area of interest. Researchers
involved in the Thematic Areas meet regularly to review progress and to discuss research
results. Collaborative projects often, though not always, arise from within a thematic area,
involving faculty, postdocs and students. The direct and personal involvement of senior
faculty in the research is stimulated through specific funding instruments. We have found this
way of working very efficient and plan to continue in the same way for the next period. As the
overall research focus today in ACCESS has moved into on networked systems in general
with emphasis on cyber-physical systems and their supporting communication infrastructure,
we plan to continue this evolutionary development through the specific research in each
Thematic Area. The attention over the last few years for these systems has very much been on
robustness, efficiency, scalability, and usability. For the remaining five-year period, we plan
to pay more attention to trust, privacy and security. We believe that these characteristics need
to be integrated in most future ICT systems and should establish themselves as important
cross-cutting themes. ACCESS is well prepared for such a research task, as several of our
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recent recruitments are in this area and they have already shown great interest for
collaborative work in this area.
ACCESS 2022 and strategy for maintaining a strong research environment
9f. What is your prognosis regarding the standing of the research from the Linnaeus
environment 10 years from now? What is your strategy for maintain a strong research
environment after the grant period?
We estimate that when the Linnaeus Grant funding runs out in 2015, ACCESS will have
established itself as one of top three centers in the world in the area. We estimate a further
strong faculty renewal on all levels, and that ACCESS will be established as a venue of choice
for PhD students and postdocs from the leading universities and institutes around the world.
We therefore believe that there will be sufficient momentum to continue ACCESS after direct
VR funding runs out, and that ACCESS in 2022 will be flourishing. Our strategy to reach this
objective is to push for renewal and renovation already now. The instruments to do this are
promotion and recruitment of junior faculty to ACCESS and to management positions in
ACCESS, to especially push for promotion and recruitment of female and non-Swedish-born
faculty at all levels, and to seek new long-term high-profile funding. ACCESS will also invest
in and exploit existing vehicles at KTH such as EIT and the KTH-UIUC collaboration, as well
as in more targeted joint ventures with UC Berkeley, Chinese Academy of Sciences and other
partners. The Center plans to continue to be well aligned with KTH’s strategic plan in the
area. We do believe that it is of outmost importance that some Linnaeus-like funding is
awarded in order to continue the positive development of the environment till 2022, to support
joint activities and collaborative efforts.
20 selected publications
9g. In Appendix 1 list selected publications (max 20) to illustrate the research of the Linnaeus
environment since it started in 2006. For each publication, describe how the results relate to
the research programme of the Linnaeus environment (max 500 characters including spaces).
Mark with an asterisk (*) the publications that can be attributed to new collaboration
resulting from the Linnaeus Grant.
The publications and descriptions in Appendix 1 are chosen to highlight some of the breadth
and depth of the ACCESS research program. The total number of scientific publications is
over 200 papers per year, so of course the included sample has severe limitations.
15 participating researchers
9h. In Appendix 2 enclose CV (max 2 pages) and complete lists of publications (since the
Linnaeus environment started in 2006) for a maximum of 15 participating researchers active
in the environment.
The ACCESS faculty has today 35 members, including assistant-, associate- and full
professors. In Appendix 2, we have enclosed CV’s and publication lists for the following 15
researchers, which represent a mixture of senior faculty members and recently recruited junior
and senior members:
 Erik Aurell (Professor, Vice Director 2009-2011)
 Sonja Buchegger (Recruited Associate Professor, Vice Director from 2012)
 Mads Dam (Professor, TA Member)
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











Carlo Fischione (Recruited Associate Professor, previous ACCESS postdoc)
Markus Flierl (Recruited Associate Professor, TA Leader from 2012)
Peter Händel (Professor, TA Leader)
Håkan Hjalmarsson (Professor, previous TA Leader)
Karl H. Johansson (Professor, Director)
Mikael Johansson (Professor, TA Leader)
Gunnar Karlsson (Professor, Board Member)
Anders Lindquist (Professor, Deputy Board Member)
Tobias Oechtering (Recruited Assistant Professor, previous ACCESS postdoc)
Björn Ottersten (Professor, previous Director)
Lars Rasmussen (Recruited Professor, Deputy TA Leader)
Mikael Skoglund (Professor, Graduate School Director)
Collaboration
ACCESS has an extensive collaboration with national and international universities and
research institutes, but has also substantial interaction with industry and societal
organizations, as illustrated in Figure 3 and detailed below.
Figure 3: ACCESS has an extensive collaboration with national and international universities and research institutes.
ACCESS has also succeeded to build up a strong portfolio of joint projects with industry.
New ACCESS collaboration within KTH
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10a. Since the first evaluation (after 1.5 years), can any new collaborative initiatives be
attributed wholly or partly to research funded by the Linnaeus Grant? Please list only new
collaboration involving the Linnaeus environment: between the Linnaeus environment and
other parts of KTH.
The consolidation of researchers and resources into a single center, along with the joint
research initiatives and the new faculty that the Linneaus Grant has enabled us to attract and
has allowed us to make ACCESS a focal point for research in communications and networked
systems. As such, the Center has become a natural collaborator for many national and
international research initiatives. Prominent examples include the EIT ICT Labs and EIT
InnoEnergy, where KTH plays a central role, as discussed previously. Similarly, we believe
that ACCESS, and the research that we have performed within the Center, was instrumental in
securing the SRA TNG grant, which is a joint initiative between KTH, Stockholm University,
and the research institutes SICS and ACREO, mixing collaborative research projects with
substantial funding of new faculty. So far, four new faculty members, funded by the SRA
TNG grant, have been recruited to ACCESS, and another two positions are expected to be
filled in the coming year. ACCESS has strong ties to other KTH centers in related areas, such
as CIAM (Applied Mathematics) and Wireless@KTH (Telecommunication Systems and
Economics).
New collaboration with Swedish universities
10b. Since the first evaluation (after 1.5 years), can any new collaborative initiatives be
attributed wholly or partly to research funded by the Linnaeus Grant? Please list only new
collaboration involving the Linnaeus environment: national collaboration with researchers or
research groups at other universities in Sweden.
The ACCESS Center has strengthened the collaborations with researchers in related centers in
Sweden. Examples include collaborations with the researchers in the LCCC Linnaeus center
in Lund, the CADICS Linnaeus center in Linköping, and their joint ELLIIT initiative. These
collaborations include formal joint projects in software-intense systems sponsored by the
Swedish Foundation for Strategic Research (SSF) and two ERC grants. Specifically, we
collaborate in the SSF projects ICT-Psi (”An ICT platform for sustainable infrastructures”)
between Lund and KTH, and Ramcooran (”Resource allocation and multi-node cooperation in
radio access networks”) between KTH and Linköping, and the ERC grants LEARN between
KTH and Linköping and AMIMOS between KTH and Uppsala. Only AMIMOS existed at the
time of the first evaluation.
New international collaborations
Include, for example both bi-lateral cooperation and agreements to participate in networks,
consortiums, multicenter studies and other initiatives. For each type of collaboration
describe, to the extent possible, the actual or potential synergy effects.
10c. Since the first evaluation (after 1.5 years), can any new collaborative initiatives be
attributed wholly or partly to research funded by the Linnaeus Grant? Please list only new
collaboration involving the Linnaeus environment: international collaboration.
ACCESS faculty members maintain since long extensive and intensive collaborations with
leading researchers and institutions worldwide. Thanks to the Linnaeus grant, several of these
collaborations have now become formalized and intensified. For example, ACCESS faculty
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members have had sabbaticals at UC Berkeley, Stanford, Caltech and ETH Zürich (and
faculty members from UC Berkeley and ETH have had sabbaticals at ACCESS); we send two
students each year to Stanford and each summer to the SURF program at Caltech; ACCESS
has bilateral agreements with KAIST and Seoul National University (sponsored by STINT’s
Korea program), IISCc (sponsored by VINNOVA) and UESTC and BUPT (VINNOVA’s
Sweden-China projects), and ACCESS has been instrumental in the creation of formal
collaboration agreements between KTH and UIUC. ACCESS participates in several new
European Networks of Excellence, such as Euro-NF on Future Internet, HYCON2 on
networked control systems and ACROPOLIS on the fundamentals of cognitive radio and
spectrum sharing.
New collaboration with industry and society
10d. Since the first evaluation (after 1.5 years), can any new collaborative initiatives be
attributed wholly or partly to research funded by the Linnaeus Grant? Please list only new
collaboration involving the Linnaeus environment: collaboration with industry the public
sector, policy makers, and/or other segments of society.
ACCESS researchers have formal collaboration agreements with a range of leading
companies in the area of communication and networked systems. Some examples of such
collaborations where the ACCESS grant has been instrumental and new collaborations have
developed over the last few years are in industry-academia projects with Ericsson (who also
sponsors three concurrent projects through the ACCESS industrial sponsorship program),
Scania (who sponsors multiple PhD students as well as research in vehicular control and
communications), ABB (who supports projects in industrial communication). Similar
initiatives have been developed by CISCO, MSB, FOI, Electrolux and Global IP Solutions
(recently acquired by Google).
External communication and dissemination
11. Describe your communication strategy. What efforts have been made to
communicate/disseminate information about the activities and results of research funded by
the Linnaeus Grant? Please note that this question does not seek to capture details of
scientific presentations made to your peers in academia. Describe how the results have been,
and will be, communicated/disseminated to the public, policy makers, research agencies, etc.
Please list the method of communication for example textbooks, popular science
presentations, or other media.
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Figure 4 Examples of ACCESS external communication and dissemination activities.
A major ACCESS effort is on the public communication and dissemination of research results
and their impact on the Swedish society. Some of the activities are illustrated in Figure 4. A
Public Relations Officer (50%) was hired 2008. An important initiative for the PR Officer has
been to lead the development of the ACCESS Communication Strategy, which was completed
in 2009. The project, which had financial support from the VINNOVA-VR Pilot Program,
engaged the ACCESS faculty in several workshops to define how to communicate ACCESS
research to the public and reach out to the Center’s target groups. The Communication
Strategy has led to that research results and activities have been made more accessible
through a diversity of channels such as traditional media, brochures, Internet, workshops,
lectures series, media training, and PhD courses in research communication. Over the past
two years, ACCESS research results have generated several articles in the Swedish national
press. In addition, ACCESS has also organized a journalist seminar on smart grids aimed at
building up long-term relationships with journalists on a topic in which networked and
communication systems are a vital infrastructure for the society.
Several ACCESS in-house efforts have strengthened the external communications. New
workshops and conferences have widened researchers’ perspectives and led to countless
collaborations. The Distinguished Lecture Series has, so far, brought more than fifty
internationally renowned speakers from around the world to ACCESS, providing KTH with a
lecture series of absolute world class. The lectures have been made available to a wider
audience on YouTube. The ACCESS Internal Seminar Series helps our PhD students but also
postdocs and faculty members to open up for interdisciplinary collaboration, both internally
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and externally, as representatives of industry also attend. The media training and PhD course
in research communication prepare researchers to take command of their messages during
their communications with their target groups. ACCESS is also opening up for more
interactive communication by connecting with its stakeholders and enthusiasts through social
media. Some initial work has also started to enable face-to-face meetings with high school
and college students, such as an open house with talks and demos. These activities are
planned together with corresponding efforts by KTH.
Participating personnel
12a. List the individuals that actively participated in the Linnaeus environment during 1 July
2006 through 30 June 2011, and those expected to participate in the environment during 1
July 2011 through 30 June 2016. Please use the table in Appendix 3 as a template for
presenting the active participants in the Linnaeus environment.
The participants are listed in Appendix 3. For 2011-2016 it is expected that the ACCESS
faculty be extended with a few new members. Currently ACCESS is involved in recruitment
to new KTH positions in for instance cloud computing and machine-to-machine
communication, which probably will engage new members to the ACCESS faculty. The
participation of ACCESS PhD students, postdocs, and visiting faculty will evolve over the
next few years in accordance with the individual research leaders. We are convinced that
ACCESS will continue to attract international top-talents and expand our highly dynamic
environment.
12b. Describe strategies for recruiting researchers and research groups. Describe any
strategy you might have for appointing new groups or dissolving groups, if needed.
ACCESS recruitment strategies are aligned with the KTH strategies in ICT the Next
Generation (TNG), which is focused on renewing the KTH faculty by establishing start-up
grants for new positions in ICT. So far, seven new tenure track positions have been filled out
of which four have become ACCESS faculty members (Carlo Fischione, Supriya
Krishnamurthy, Tobias Oechtering, and Alexandre Proutiere), all with international degrees
and excellent initial conditions. ACCESS plans to continue these efforts of recruitment
aligned with KTH’s strategy. In particular, in accordance with the ACCESS plan for future
research, ACCESS strengthens currently its position in the area of trust and security.
12c. Describe and comment on strategies for recruiting researchers and research groups
from a gender perspective. Have the strategies been successful? Describe any planned or
needed actions.
ACCESS has introduced actions for recruiting female researchers. From an all-male start of
ACCESS, there are now three female ACCESS faculty members: Drs. Sonja Buchegger,
Viktoria Fodor, and Supriya Krishnamurthy. These members have been granted with VR
Young Researcher Awards, Future Research Leader Award from the Strategic Research
Foundation, KTH Startup grants etc. ACCESS has also attracted women for a KTH guest
professorship (Prof. Maria G. Papadopouli, University of Crete) and the VR Tage Erlander
Professorship (Prof. Claire Tomlin, UC Berkeley). The participation of women in the
ACCESS Distinguished Lecture Series (DLS) has increased over the last two years. The
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executive committee now also includes women. A recent initiative is to try to increase the
recruitment of female post-doctoral scholars, by doubling the funding support from ACCESS
for female candidates. A special support for junior faculty taking parental leave have been
introduced by the School of Electrical Engineering, which provides the researcher with a
300K SEK grant for a strong start when returning from leave
Organization and leadership
13a. Describe any changes in the organization, leadership and management of the Linnaeus
environment since the previous evaluation /after 1.5 years). Comment on the effect(s) of these
changes. Describe any foreseen, planned or needed changes. In Appendix 4 please provide
an organizational chart to illustrate how the Linnaeus environment is organized.
The basic organization of the ACCESS Linnaeus Center remains the same since the previous
evaluation, but several positions in the management have been changed. Prof. Gunnar
Landgren, Node Director EIT ICT Labs and Advisor to the President, has replaced Prof. Peter
Gudmundson, President of KTH, as Chairman of the ACCESS Board. Christer Norström has
replaced Staffan Truve as Board Member, as a consequence of the corresponding replacement
as CEO of the Swedish Institute of Computer Science. Prof. Karl H. Johansson has replaced
Prof. Björn Ottersten as the Director of ACCESS, and Prof. Erik Aurell took over the role as
Vice Director. Dr. Sonja Buchegger will serve as Vice Director from Jan 2012. Profs. Peter
Händel, Mikael Johansson, and Rolf Stadler are new Thematic Area Leaders and thus new
members of the ACCESS Executive Committee. A Public Relations Officer position was
established and Mrs Marie Androv holds this part-time position since 2009. Ms Kristina
Gustafsson serves as administrative and economic assistant since 2011. These changes have
been a natural evolution of ACCESS and similar rotations on some of the management
positions, such as Thematic Area leaders, will take place also during the coming years. The
organization chart is shown in Appendix 4.
13b. Describe and comment on the current leadership structure in the Linnaeus environment
from a gender perspective. Describe any planned or needed actions.
ACCESS recruitment of women has increased: from an all-male start of ACCESS in 2006 to
three female ACCESS faculty members in 2011: Drs. Sonja Buchegger, Viktoria Fodor, and
Supriya Krishnamurthy. Dr. Sonja Buchegger will serve as Vice Director from Jan 2012. It is
likely that at least one of the Thematic Area Leaders will be a woman in the near future. The
Publication Relations Officer Marie Androv serves in the Executive Committee. The fivemember ACCESS Scientific Advisory Board includes Profs. Marta Kwiatkowska (Unviersity
of Oxford), Radia Perlman (Intel), and Claire Tomlin (UC Berkeley), who are all not only top
international research scholars but also excellent role models for ACCESS future faculty
members and postdocs.
Budget and financing
Please present the budget and the financial plan in one or more tables as in Appendix 5 (a –
economic report covering the period 1 July 2006 through 30 June 2011) and Appendix 6 (bfinancial plan)
An economic report is included in Appendix 5.
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14b. Financial plan covering the remaining period (1 July 2011 through 30 June 2016)
including income/contributions received and costs as specified in 14a.
A financial plan is included in Appendix 6.
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