Research News
Visiting Professor
Between July 2–6, 2025, Prof. Cristian D. Popescu, PhD, Docent, an internationally renowned scholar affiliated with UC San Diego, Princeton, the Institute for Advanced Study, the Romanian Academy, and the American Mathematical Society, visited UAV as a Visiting Professor.
Prof. Popescu’s meetings with the faculty members of the Faculty of Exact Sciences generated valuable discussions on number theory, algebraic geometry, group theory, data science, and applied artificial intelligence.
Strengthening International Research Collaboration at Our University 🤝
We had the honor of hosting Dr. Vincent Grosso, a renowned researcher from Université Jean-Monnet, France, together with one of his PhD students, Nicolas Vallet, for a one-month research visit at the Faculty of Exact Sciences – UAV Arad. Their stay marks an important step forward in our commitment to internationalization and cutting-edge research.
🔐 In close collaboration with our colleague Vlad Drăgoi, the team focused on side-channel attacks on the Classic McEliece scheme, a flagship post-quantum Key Encapsulation Mechanism (KEM). This joint research enhances our institution’s visibility in the fields of post-quantum cryptography and cybersecurity.
💬 During the visit, Dr. Grosso also delivered an engaging presentation as part of our faculty’s Scientific Seminar, offering valuable insights into emerging vulnerabilities in cryptographic systems.
🏛 The two French researchers were welcomed by the President of Aurel Vlaicu University of Arad, with whom they held substantial discussions regarding:
- New directions for joint research grant proposals,
- Opportunities for visiting professorships,
- Expanded academic collaboration between our institutions.
We are proud to see our university’s leadership actively supporting initiatives that strengthen international partnerships and enhance our academic prestige. 🌟
🇷🇴🇫🇷 This visit was made possible through the joint support of the University of Arad and the Hubert Curien Laboratory in France—a testament to the power of collaborative funding and shared scientific goals.
🌆 Beyond research, our guests enjoyed the charm of Arad—from its historical landmarks to the rich flavors of local cuisine and the beauty of its surroundings.
Here's to more global partnerships, innovative research, and shared successes!
Attacks and Defenses in the Post-Quantum Era: UAV Arad’s Contribution
We are proud to announce that the Faculty of Exact Sciences was represented at the international CASCADE 2025 conference in Saint-Étienne by two members of our team, Vlad Drăgoi and Antonio Luputi. CASCADE 2025, held between April 2–4, focuses on cryptographic implementations and embedded security, providing a platform for experts to discuss advancements in these critical fields. https://cascade-conference.org
During their one-week stay, Vlad and Antonio engaged in fruitful discussions with members of the SESAM team at the Hubert Curien CNRS Laboratory. Their conversations covered a wide range of topics, including research in post-quantum cryptography—particularly code-based cryptography—potential future collaborations, and preparations for joint activities planned for this year.
Together with Brice Colombier, Vincent Grosso, and Pierre-Louis Cayre, Vlad published a paper at the conference titled “Message-Recovery Horizontal Correlation Attack on Classic McEliece.”
In this work, the authors present a side-channel attack that exploits horizontal correlations in the decryption process of the Classic McEliece cryptosystem to recover plaintext messages. They demonstrate the effectiveness of this attack through practical experiments, highlighting potential vulnerabilities in Classic McEliece implementations and underscoring the need for robust countermeasures to defend against such side-channel threats.
This research mission was funded through the European grant Barrande+, which brings together three EU countries: France, the Czech Republic, and Romania. Through initiatives like this, Aurel Vlaicu University of Arad and the Faculty of Exact Sciences – UAV Arad continue to support one of their core missions: advancing scientific research and expanding our research groups across Europe.
Among the Top 2% Most Cited Scientists in the World
The Top World Ranking of Scientists 2% is considered the most prestigious ranking of its kind worldwide. It is compiled by Stanford University (California, USA) in collaboration with Elsevier Publishing and the scientific research organization SciTech Strategies, following an analysis of the publications of more than 10 million scientists across 22 fields and 176 subfields, covering the period 1996–2022.
Prof. Dr. Valeriu Beiu has been included in this global ranking for the fourth consecutive year.
Visiting Researcher
Our colleague Vlad-Florin Drăgoi has received, for the second time, funding as a Visiting Researcher at Jean Monnet University, Saint-Étienne, France. Due to the international impact of the results obtained in collaboration with colleagues from the SESAM team, Hubert Curien Laboratory, CNRS, Vlad was selected among the few researchers awarded funding by the French laboratory to spend a one-month research stay in France (10.06.2024–10.07.2024) as an invited Romanian researcher.
Most of the activities carried out during the visit focused on their joint research topic, namely post-quantum cryptography based on error-correcting codes. Upon his return, Vlad stated:
“We are optimistic about our results; at the end of the visit we submitted a paper to one of the most renowned conferences in cryptography.” (CHES https://ches.iacr.org/2024/)
If the scientific results are promising, the prospects for research projects and future collaborations are equally encouraging. Together with P.-L. Cayrel, Vlad has secured an extended mobility project between Jean Monnet University, Saint-Étienne, Aurel Vlaicu University of Arad, and Czech Technical University in Prague. Moreover, this initiative is part of a broader effort to strengthen experience exchange and collaboration between UAV and UJM. The two researchers are actively discussing the development of a European project within Pillar II, Cluster 3 of the Horizon Europe programme.
Visiting Professor–Researcher at UNSW Sydney
Our colleague Vlad-Florin Drăgoi participated as a Visiting Professor in research activities alongside colleagues from the University of New South Wales (UNSW Sydney), Australia. For 10 days, from November 18 to 28, Vlad was hosted by Prof. Jinhong YUAN, Director of the Wireless Communication Lab within the School of Electrical Engineering and Telecommunications | Faculty of Engineering – UNSW Sydney.
The activities were funded through an Australian research project supporting international collaboration, with Vlad being part of the group of researchers who initiated and recently carried out joint research with members of UNSW. Together with Jinhong Yuan and Mohammad Rowshan, he achieved notable results related to polar codes, which are used in 5G technology. The research direction now continues with the analysis of a family of codes that may be applicable in future communication standards.
The discussions extended beyond scientific topics, as the two teams also intend to submit joint research project proposals.
Among the Top 2% Most Cited Scientists in the World
The Top World Ranking of Scientists 2% is considered the most prestigious classification of its kind worldwide. It is compiled by Stanford University (California, USA) in collaboration with Elsevier Publishing and the scientific research organization SciTech Strategies, following an analysis of the work of more than 10 million scientists across 22 fields and 176 subfields, covering the period 1996–2022.
According to the latest update of the ranking, published in October 2023, two faculty members of the Faculty of Exact Sciences appear in two of the evaluated categories:
- in the category of career-long impact—the most cited researchers worldwide throughout their entire career—Prof. Dr. Valeriu Beiu (for the third consecutive year), and
- in the category for the year 2022, Prof. Dr. Sorin Nădăban.
[https://elsevier.digitalcommonsdata.com/datasets/btchxktzyw/6]
The Faculty of Exact Sciences Is Actively Involved in International Research Groups in Cryptology
In recent years, the name Aurel Vlaicu University of Arad has appeared increasingly often on the international cryptology scene—particularly in the field of post-quantum cryptology. Faculty members of UAV collaborate with international research teams from:
France:
- Université Lyon, UJM Saint-Étienne, CNRS, Laboratoire Hubert Curien
- ENSICAEN, Groupe de recherche en informatique et instrumentation de Caen
Senegal:
- ESP, Laboratoire d’Imagerie Médicale et de Bio-Informatique, Dakar
Canada:
- Department of Electrical & Computer Engineering, University of Waterloo
Their papers have been accepted, presented, and published at world-renowned conferences and journals in the field, including: Eurocrypt 2021, COSADE 2023, ITW 2022, ISIT 2022, ICISC 2022, IMACC 2021, TIFS 2022, Africacrypt 2023.
Members of the Faculty of Exact Sciences have also secured research funding for their activities.
V.-F. Drăgoi obtained a research project (2019–2023) funded by the Ministry of Research, Innovation and Digitalization. In 2023, he also received two grants as a visiting researcher/professor at universities in France: Jean Monnet University, Saint-Étienne, and the University of Rouen.
Africacrypt 2023 : https://link.springer.com/chapter/10.1007/978-3-031-37679-5_5
COSADE 2023 : https://link.springer.com/chapter/10.1007/978-3-031-29497-6_9
ICISC 2022 : https://link.springer.com/chapter/10.1007/978-3-031-29371-9_11
ITW 2022 : https://ieeexplore.ieee.org/abstract/document/9965806
TIFS 2022 : https://ieeexplore.ieee.org/abstract/document/9854893
ISIT 2022 : https://ieeexplore.ieee.org/abstract/document/9834696
CryptArchi 2022 : https://bcolombier.fr/assets/talks_PDF/2022/Cryptarchi_2022.pdf
IMACC 2021 : https://link.springer.com/chapter/10.1007/978-3-030-92641-0_2
Eurocrypt 2021 : https://link.springer.com/chapter/10.1007/978-3-030-77886-6_15
Code-Based Cryptography
One of the research projects won by our colleagues was completed in August 2022. This was a project in post-quantum cryptography (http://codebasedcrypto.uav.ro/...), which aimed to analyze the physical and theoretical security of encryption schemes based on error-correcting codes, solutions currently proposed for standardization. The research activities involved scientists from Romania (UAV, “Alexandru Ioan Cuza” University of Iași) and France (University of Saint-Étienne, University of Grenoble).
The members of the teams working on this topic achieved both practical results (two hybrid attacks) and theoretical contributions (a framework enabling the redefinition of Information Set Decoding algorithms and an analysis of self-dual monomial codes). The results were published and presented at prestigious conferences (Eurocrypt, ISIT, ITW, IMACC, CBCrypto) as well as in renowned scientific journals (IEEE TIFS, Networks).
For the Second Year on the World’s Top 2% Scientists List
Tuesday, 1 November 2022
It is for the second year in a row that dr. Valeriu Beiu, a senior member of our faculty, was included in the list of the top 2% most widely cited scholars worldwide for his entire career (based on bibliometric information from Scopus). The process is curated by a team from Stanford University lead by dr. John P.A. Ioannidis. The latest version was published on October 2022 (available at Mendeley Data) and includes over 195,000 researchers (out of almost 10 million scientists working on 22 scientific fields divided into 176 subfields) ranked excluding self-citations and considering the authorships’ positions (covering 1960-2020).
