Joint programme description

Students graduating from the Joint Master’s Programme will be awarded a Joint Diploma Master in International Cybersecurity and Cyberintelligence according to the regulations governing the degree-awarding institution which in this case is the University of Padua.

All graduates receive a Joint Transcript of Records and a Joint Diploma Supplement, in accordance with the model developed by the European Commission, the Council of Europe, and the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization – European Centre for Higher Education (CEPES). As the coordinating university, University of Granada prepares and issues these documents.

Students join an international cohort and follow a shared mobility path across the four universities in the MICAC consortium. Each location contributes a complementary academic approach, supporting students’ progression from strong theoretical foundations to independent research and advanced practical work.

• At the University of Padua, students spend the first semester attending face-to-face classes, complemented by a course taught by the University of Minho. This semester builds a strong theoretical and methodological foundation in areas such as cryptography, digital forensics combining academic concepts with technical exercises and applications.
• At Vilnius University, students spend the second semester attending face-to-face classes with a strong emphasis on research and increasingly independent learning. Through coursework and research projects, students develop their ability to review scientific literature, formulate research questions, investigate security problems and critically analyse and present their findings. Students are expected to take an active role in organising their work, with guidance from the teaching staff.
• At the University of Granada, students spend the third semester attending face-to-face classes that further develop their practical and analytical capabilities in cybersecurity and cyberintelligence. Subjects such as ethical hacking, cyberprotection systems and network security provide opportunities to apply previous learning to technical challenges, alongside the study of international cyberintelligence.
• Finally, the fourth semester is dedicated to the Master’s thesis, with remote or local supervision according to the agreed topic and host arrangements. Students bring together the knowledge and research skills acquired throughout the programme to undertake an independent project. The programme concludes with Graduation Week, which students attend in person at the University of Minho. 

The curriculum is structured into four semesters, for a total of 11 mandatory classes and 5 optional classes to be chosen among 13.

The core of the curriculum consists of the following mandatory classes:

1. Fundamentals of cryptography (I semester, Padova)
2. Digital Forensics (I semester, Padova)
3. Fundamentals on international cybersecurity (I semester, Minho)
4. Operating systems security (II semester, Vilnius)
5. Security of applications (II semester, Vilnius)
6. International management of cybersecurity (II semester, Vilnius)
7. Research projects (II semester, Vilnius)
8. Ethical hacking (III semester, Granada)
9. Cyberprotection systems (III semester, Granada)
10. Network security (III semester, Granada)
11. International cyberintelligence (III semester, Granada)

The students will then choose two classes among the following electives in the I semester (Padova):

1. Mobile security
2. Cyberphysical and IoT security
3. Secure Software Verification
4. Machine Learning techniques for event correlation
5. Formal methods for cyberphysical systems
6. Quantum cryptography and security
7. Privacy preserving information access
8. Law and data

One among the following electives in the II semester (Vilnius):

1. Malware
2. Rapid reaction and first response

And finally, two classes among the electives in the III semester (Granada):

1. International cooperation in cyberspace
2. Cyberwarfare
3. Post-quantum cryptography

The IV semester will be mainly devoted to the thesis work, and writing. It can be spent by the students as an internship either in a company, or in a research institution.

The programme conclusion will be held at University of Minho with the thesis defence by all students which will be preceded by a practical exercise.

In addition to this, as an academic programme, our master seeks to be agnostic, prioritising training in open-source tools and platforms. The following table includes the platforms and tools used, highlighting those that are used more intensively.

The assessment strategies are presented in all course syllabuses. Lecturers also present the assessment strategies during their first semester lectures and remind the exam assessment strategy during the first lecture. All subjects except the final thesis and the professional practice have an accumulative assessment. Each assessment strategy is worth a particular number of points in the final evaluation. This assessment policy makes students feel relatively confident and less stressed. The Virtual Learning Environment and online teaching resources that provide technical environments developed by individual university partners enable feedback from the mid-term tasks. The feedback can be provided for each task and each student.

After completing all the courses offered by partner universities and defending the final thesis, students will receive a joint diploma, which will be issued by Granada University.