EUROCRYPT

EUROCRYPT
source
Name	EUROCRYPT
Status	Active
Discipline	Cryptography
Frequency	Annual
First	1982
Organizer	International Association for Cryptologic Research
Country	Europe

EUROCRYPT

EUROCRYPT is an annual international conference focusing on cryptography and information security that brings together researchers, practitioners, and students from academia, industry, and government. The event is part of a series of specialized conferences that include CRYPTO, ASIACRYPT, and TCC and is associated with organizations such as the International Association for Cryptologic Research and national research institutions across Europe. EUROCRYPT fosters dissemination of theoretical advances and practical implementations and has influenced standards, protocols, and curricula at universities and laboratories worldwide.

History

EUROCRYPT began in 1982 amid parallel developments at IBM Research, Bell Labs, ENISA, and universities such as Cambridge University, ETH Zurich, University of Oxford, TU Darmstadt, and École Polytechnique that were advancing public-key cryptography, symmetric ciphers, and cryptographic protocols. Early editions featured interactions with figures from RSA Security, GCHQ, NSA, Siemens, and Philips Research and were shaped by foundational works by researchers at MIT, Stanford University, UC Berkeley, and Microsoft Research. Throughout the 1990s and 2000s EUROCRYPT engaged with developments arising from conferences like ACM CCS, IEEE S&P, Usenix Security Symposium, and NDSS while providing a European venue complementary to Crypto Conference traditions in the United States and AsiaCrypt in Asia. The conference has been held in cities such as Paris, Berlin, London, Tallinn, Amsterdam, Barcelona, Prague, and Vienna with participation from institutions like CNRS, CERN, Fraunhofer Society, Max Planck Institute, and Inria.

Conference Scope and Topics

EUROCRYPT covers a broad spectrum linking theory and practice, including work on public-key cryptography, symmetric-key cryptography, zero-knowledge proofs, secure multi-party computation, post-quantum cryptography, lattice-based cryptography, homomorphic encryption, identity-based encryption, digital signatures, hash functions, randomness extractors, blockchain-related protocols, and privacy-enhancing technologies. Papers often build on mathematical foundations from number theory, algebraic geometry, complexity theory, probability theory, coding theory, and combinatorics developed at institutions such as Princeton University, Yale University, Columbia University, University of California, San Diego, University of Maryland, Johns Hopkins University, and University of Cambridge. Practical dimensions include implementations for platforms like ARM Holdings processors, Intel SGX enclaves, NVIDIA GPUs, and software stacks from OpenSSL, Bouncy Castle, LibreSSL, and GnuPG.

Organization and Sponsorship

EUROCRYPT is organized by a program committee and local organizing committees drawn from universities and research labs such as ETH Zurich, KTH Royal Institute of Technology, Technical University of Munich, University College London, KU Leuven, Saarland University, University of Bristol, and University of Warsaw. Sponsors have included industry names like Google, Microsoft, Amazon Web Services, Facebook, Intel, IBM, NXP Semiconductors, Thales Group, Nokia, Ericsson, and national funding agencies such as the European Commission through frameworks like Horizon 2020 and Horizon Europe, and bodies such as the Austrian Science Fund, DFG, Swiss National Science Foundation, and Spanish Ministry of Science. Collaborations often involve professional societies including the European Mathematical Society and the Association for Computing Machinery.

Notable Papers and Contributions

EUROCRYPT has published influential works that intersect with landmark results from authors affiliated with Bell Labs, MIT CSAIL, Princeton, Cornell University, Weizmann Institute, Technion, University of Tokyo, Tsinghua University, Peking University, École Normale Supérieure, and Imperial College London. Examples include advances in zero-knowledge techniques related to the Feige-Fiat-Shamir identification scheme, constructions for fully homomorphic encryption inspired by breakthroughs at IBM Research and Gentry's work, lattice reductions impacting NTRU and Ring-LWE proposals, and contributions to protocol composition influenced by the Universal Composability framework. EUROCRYPT papers have informed standardization efforts at IETF, ISO, and NIST and have been cited in work from W3C, ETSI, ISO/IEC JTC 1, and industrial specifications from TLS and SSH ecosystems.

Acceptance and Review Process

Submissions to EUROCRYPT undergo double-blind or single-blind peer review determined by the program committee composed of senior researchers from institutions such as University of Waterloo, McGill University, University of Bonn, Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam, Karlsruhe Institute of Technology, and Heidelberg University. The review pipeline typically includes external reviewers drawn from the broader community including researchers at Bell Labs, Google Research, Amazon Research, Facebook AI Research, and independent specialists associated with labs like SRI International and RIKEN. Acceptance rates vary by year but are competitive, similar to peer conferences like CRYPTO, ASIACRYPT, TCC, and PKC, with authors often presenting at workshops such as Real World Crypto Symposium and summer schools like COSIC Summer School.

Awards and Recognitions

EUROCRYPT presents awards for best paper, best student paper, and outstanding contribution, sometimes coordinated with honors from bodies such as the European Research Council, Gödel Prize-level recognitions, and career awards aligned with academic fellowships at Royal Society, Academia Europaea, and national academies including the British Academy and the German National Academy of Sciences Leopoldina. Notable awardees have included researchers affiliated with ETH Zurich, Princeton University, Stanford University, University of California, Berkeley, Max Planck Institute for Informatics, and Saarland University whose work later influenced prizes like the Turing Award and citations in textbooks from publishers such as Springer, Oxford University Press, Cambridge University Press, and MIT Press.

Category:Cryptography conferences