The ROC team is hosting a Seminar by Prof. Serge Fdida, Sorbonne Université, France, in the context of the monthly Seminars of the ROC team. The title of the talk is “SLICES, Your Scientific Instrument to support Future Networked System Research“.
This Seminar is co-organized by the IEEE France Section Life Member Affinity Group.
The Seminar will be preceded by the PhD Defense of Mario Patetta, starting at 1:30 p.m. in the same room.
When: December 16, 2025 — 4:30 p.m.
Where: Auditorium Gaston Planté
CNAM
2 rue Conté
75003 Paris, France
Serge Fdida, Sorbonne Université, France
Title: SLICES, Your Scientific Instrument to support Future Networked System Research
Abstract: The scientific community working on next-generation networks and systems increasingly lacks advanced, sustainable open tools to validate research, accelerate discovery through data sharing, and support reproducibility. The rapid pace of academic production — driven largely by data-intensive methods and the fast adoption of AI/ML — makes validation ever more challenging. SLICES-RI is the first initiative designed as a sustainable scientific instrument under the European ESFRI framework. SLICES-RI is intent-driven and supports the complete lifecycle of experimental research—from concept to reproducible deployment—by enabling experiments to be executed over its infrastructure through standardized blueprints, and by systematically collecting, archiving, and documenting all outputs following a rigorous methodology. A key challenge today lies in creating a seamless, continuous mechanism that can translate scientific excellence into competitive advantage at the pace of innovation. SLICES-RI addresses this by going beyond the mere provision of advanced technology — most importantly, it enables virtual access through an open data management infrastructure and well-defined workflows. In addition, we argue that the importance of data, scale and diversity, motivates the interest for building foundation models that will definitely have a strong transformative role in the design of open research infrastructures.
SLICES-RI is the appropriate environment for designing, testing and assessing such network foundation models. This talk will present the SLICES instrument, its community, academic engagement, and roadmap, highlighting its openness and its strong potential for collaboration. The SLICES-RI “Beyond 5G BluePrint” will illustrate the talk with practical examples.
Keywords: Scientific instrument, open research data, network foundation models, reproducibility, Open Source, 6G and ORAN Technologies, Core-Edge continuum.
Bio: Serge Fdida is a Professor with Sorbonne Université, Paris, France. His research interests are related to the future networked systems, technology and architecture (Internet, 6G, …). He has been coordinating 11 research projects in Europe, notably pioneering the activity on federated Internet testbeds (he established PlanetLab Europe in 2007).
Serge Fdida is an IEEE Fellow and an ACM Sigcomm Distinguished Scientist. Serge Fdida also developed a strong experience related to innovation and industry transfer: – co-founder of the Qosmos and Hopcast companies, – leadership role to the creation of the Cap Digital cluster in Paris, President of EIT Health France and coordinator of the 4EU+ European University.
He steered the successful SLICES initiative, the first large-scale scientific instrument in Digital Sciences, that entered the ESFRI roadmap in 2021. He also developed a strong experience in the governance of Higher Research and Education organizations: Advisor ITC Department CNRS (2000-2005); Vice-President European affairs University P&M Curie (2014-2018); Vice-President International Development of Sorbonne Université (2018-2021).
LinkedIn Profile: https://www.linkedin.com/in/serge-fdida-29829a4/
