The ‘Athena’ Research Center is the only Research Center in the country with an exclusive focus on information technology and applications in all its manifestations. It operates as a private entity, under the supervision of the General Secretariat for Research and Innovation of the Ministry of Development & Investments.
It serves the Knowledge Triangle (Research – Innovation – Education) in the fields of Informatics, Communications, Digital Technologies and Computational Sciences. A wide range of areas defines the EK “Athena” framework for action: Data science and digital repositories, Machine learning and knowledge management, Digital natural language and text processing, Artificial Intelligence and decision-making systems, Cybersecurity and digital systems protection, Virtual reality and image processing, Robotics and automation, Information and distributed systems, Industrial systems and autonomous vehicles, Embedded systems, Processing and editing of digital content from different areas of human activity.
The coexistence of Research Institutes and Units, Spin-offs, Clusters of Technology Enterprises and a Competence Center creates a fertile ecosystem for the transfer of know-how and research results to society.
The Centre has unique elements of Excellence to demonstrate:
- Over 300 R&D projects in the last 5 years. The funding from these projects is annually 5-8 times greater than the state grant of the Centre.
- Successes in highly competitive European programs such as ERC Synergy and FET Flagship.
- 4 active spin-offs and the largest spin-off acquisition that came from the country’s research fabric.
- Key participation in the 4 major international research infrastructures(CLARIN, DARIAH, ELIXIR, INSTRUCT).
- A leading role in key issues such as Knowledge Management and Open Science, achieving the establishment of the first European legal entity for Open Access issues based in Greece.
- Participation in the agenda on the hot issues of the climate crisis and the environment as coordinator of the EIT Climate-KIC Hub for Greece.
- Three knowledge-intensive clusters and international recognition of excellence in their management.
