2025 IEEE European School of Information Theory (ESIT)
The IEEE European School of Information Theory (ESIT) is an annual educational event organized by the IEEE Information Theory Society for graduate students from institutes throughout Europe and beyond. The objective of the school is to provide participants with the opportunity
- to learn from distinguished lecturers by attending long-format (3 hour) tutorials,
- to present their own work to obtain feedback and to start up collaborations,
- to hear about applications of information theory in industry,
- to participate in a stimulating and inviting forum of scientists.
Date
ESIT 2025 starts on Sunday 4 May and ends on Friday 9 May.
Location
Domus Stella Maris
Via di Colle Ameno, 5
60126, Ancona (AN), Italy
The 2025 edition of the IEEE European School of Information Theory (ESIT), organized by the Italy Section Chapter of the IEEE Information Theory Society in collaboration with the COST Action 6G-PHYSEC (CA22168), will be held in Ancona (Italy) from May 4th to May 9th, 2025. The venue will be the Domus Stella Maris, Via di Colle Ameno 5, Ancona (Italy). The school is also part of the activities of Mission 6 – PhD Programs of the RESTART project, funded by the European Union – NextGenerationEU under the Italian National Recovery and Resilience Plan (PNRR).
This year’s topics of the school include Shannon and coding theory, physical layer security, code-based cryptography, cloud-integrated networks, artificial intelligence and continual learning, reconfigurable intelligent surfaces, and integrated sensing and communication. The school features two types of lectures: tutorial lectures, delivered in the morning and having a duration of 3 hours (including a break and a final Q&A session), and lightning lectures, delivered in the afternoon and having a duration of 1 hour (including a final Q&A session). Tutorial lectures provide the student with a comprehensive introduction to a topic, covering its several facets and most promising research directions. Lightning lectures, instead, address a more specific research problem discussing cutting-edge solutions and techniques.
One of the goals of the European School of Information Theory is to promote interaction and collaboration among students. To this end, all students will have the possibility to present their work in dedicated poster sessions. Students who have just started their doctoral studies and have not yet obtained publishable results may also present the topic chosen for their thesis (including state-of-the-art and preliminary results).
Program
The detailed program is available here.
Registration
The registration fee is Euro 450. One registration covers:
- Access to all lectures
- Accommodation at Domus Stella Maris (with breakfast) from May 4 to May 9
- Lunches and dinners (in-house restaurant)
- Coffee-breaks
- Welcome reception
- Social dinner
- Transfer from Ancora airport/railway station to the venue
The number of registrations is limited to 80 due to the capacity of the venue. For inquiries about registration please contact esit2025@sm.univpm.it.
To register, please fill out the registration form.
Registration deadline: April 15th, 2025 (Extended).
The COST Action 6G-PHYSEC (CA22168) will be offering a number of grants to partially cover the expenses associated with attending the training school. These grants aim to support participants in enhancing their skills and knowledge while ensuring broader accessibility to this valuable educational opportunity. The eligibility criteria and application procedures for these grants will be detailed on the official 6G-PHYSEC website.
Tutorial Lectures
Cloud Network Flow: Understanding Information Flow in Next-Generation Cloud-Integrated Networks
Antonia Maria Tulino (University of Naples Federico II)
Jaime Llorca (University of Trento)
This lecture covers key principles and techniques for optimizing content and service distribution in modern 3C networks (caching, computation, communication). The first part focuses on strategies for efficient data storage, caching, and delivery in distributed networks, including optimizing placement, minimizing latency, reducing congestion, and using semantic communications. The second part addresses service distribution, integrating 3C resources to deliver latency-sensitive, resource-intensive services across the edge-cloud continuum. It explores service placement, flow routing, and joint resource allocation, featuring centralized optimization and distributed control with multi-agent reinforcement learning.
▶ Speakers Biographies
Antonia Maria Tulino (Fellow, IEEE) received her Ph.D. in Electrical Engineering from the Seconda Università degli Studi di Napoli, Italy, in 1999. She has held research positions at the Center for Wireless Communications, Princeton University; in Oulu, Finland; and at the Università degli Studi del Sannio, Benevento, Italy. From 2002 to 2016, she served as an Associate Professor at the Università degli Studi di Napoli Federico II, where she has been a Full Professor since 2017. Since 2002, she has also collaborated with Nokia Bell Labs, serving as a Senior Researcher and leading the Network Information Flow group. Since October 2019, she has been a Research Professor in the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering at NYU Tandon School of Engineering, New York, USA. In September 2020, she was appointed Teaching Director of the 5G Academy, a joint initiative of the Università degli Studi di Napoli Federico II and several global leaders in digital transformation, including Capgemini, TIM, Nokia, Fastweb, and PagoPA. In her research, Prof. Tulino has made groundbreaking contributions to key areas such as multi-antenna systems, random matrix theory, free probability theory, cache-aided content distribution, and cloud network control. She has been invited to speak as a tutorial presenter, keynote speaker, and plenary speaker at various prestigious international conferences. Her publication record includes over 80 peer-reviewed journal articles, 160 conference papers, 10 book chapters, and a seminal book on random matrices and wireless communications. Additionally, she holds more than 20 granted patents, with an equal number currently pending. Prof. Tulino has also led numerous high-impact research projects funded by the European Union and the Italian National Research Council. From 2011 to 2013, she served on the Editorial Board of the IEEE Transactions on Information Theory. In 2013, she was elevated to IEEE Fellow, and since 2019, she has chaired the IEEE Information Theory Society Fellows Committee. Prof. Tulino has received numerous awards, including the 2009 Stephen O. Rice Prize for the best paper in the IEEE Transactions on Communications. She was also awarded the UC3M-Santander Chair of Excellence (2018–2019), the 1000 Talent Program Award, and was selected by the National Academy of Engineering for the Frontiers of Engineering program in 2013.
Jaime Llorca is an Associate Professor at the University of Trento, Department of Information Science and Engineering, and a Research Professor at the New York University Tandon School of Engineering. He also serves as Director of Strategy at the 5G Academy, Italy, and Associate Editor for the IEEE/ACM Transactions on Networking. He previously held a Senior Research Scientist position with the Network Algorithms Group at Nokia Bell Labs, NJ, a Research Scientist position with the Wireless Networking Group at Alcatel-Lucent Bell Labs, NJ, and a postdoctoral position with the Center for Networking of Infrastructure Sensors, MD. He obtained M.S. and Ph.D. degrees in Electrical and Computer Engineering from the University of Maryland, College Park. His research interests lie in the field of network algorithms, optimization, machine learning, and distributed control, with applications to next-generation communication networks, mobile/edge/cloud computing, end-to-end service orchestration, and content distribution. Jaime has made fundamental contributions to the mathematics of content delivery and distributed cloud networks, including pioneering cooperative caching, network coding, and cloud network control algorithms, with more than 100 peer-reviewed publications and 20 patents. He is recipient of the 2007 IEEE ISSNIP Best Paper Award, the 2016 IEEE ICC Best Paper Award, and the 2015 Jimmy H.C. Lin Award for Innovation.
The Art of Learning on the Fly
Nicolò Cesa-Bianchi (University of Milan)
Online Convex Optimization is the mathematical framework underlying the design and analysis of online learning algorithms. In online learning, models are sequentially trained on data streams. For this reason, this paradigm is well suited in applications where new data is being generated all the time. In this tutorial I will describe the main algorithmic tools of online convex optimization, derive mathematical guarantees on their performance, and show connections to other related areas.
▶ Speaker Biography
Nicolò Cesa-Bianchi is professor of Computer Science at Università degli Studi di Milano and holds a joint appointment at Politecnico di Milano. His main research interests are the design and analysis of machine learning algorithms for online learning, sequential decision-making, and graph analytics. He is co-author of the monographs “Prediction, Learning, and Games” and “Regret Analysis of Stochastic and Nonstochastic Multi-armed Bandit Problems”. He served as President of the Association for Computational Learning and co-chaired the program committees of some of the most important machine learning conferences, including NeurIPS, COLT, and ALT. He is the recipient of a Google Research Award, a Xerox Foundation Award, a Criteo Faculty Award, a Google Focused Award, and an IBM Research Award. He is ELLIS fellow, member of the ELLIS board, and co-director of the ELLIS program on Interactive Learning and Interventional Representations. He is a corresponding member of the Italian Academy of Sciences.
Next Generation Multiple Access: From Basic Principles to Modern Architectures
Eduard A. Jorswieck (Technische Universität Braunschweig)
The pressure to develop new network architectures and multiple access technologies is driven by increasing demands on network performance, number of devices, network traffic and use cases. Recent advances in open radio access networks with open interfaces and software-defined network functionalities allow adaptability in terms of medium access control and physical layer, but also flexibility in terms of network architectures. The aim of this tutorial lecture is to provide a comprehensive overview of the current set of network architectures for wireless access together with next generation multiple access technologies. It starts with the classical models for multiple access channel (MAC), broadcast channel (BC), and interference channel (IC) from network information theory and derives the fundamental results on capacity regions and their coding and signal processing schemes. Extensions to multi-carrier, multi-antenna and multi-cell scenarios are discussed. The evolution from orthogonal to spatial division multiple access (SDMA), non-orthogonal multiple access (NOMA) and rate-splitting multiple access (RSMA) techniques and their performance guarantees are carefully explained. Recent advances towards multi-connectivity, cloud RAN, and cell-free multiple access (CFMA) are explained. The data rate benefits of an anecdotal open RAN network are developed, and corresponding user data rates are calculated. Massive random and grant-free access schemes are also discussed. The tutorial concludes with a list of open research questions.
▶ Speaker Biography
Eduard Axel Jorswieck is full professor with the Faculty of Electrical Engineering, Information Technology, Physics of TU Braunschweig. He is the managing director of the Institute for Communications Technology and Full Professor at TU Braunschweig, Germany. From 2008 until 2019, he was the head of the Chair for Communications Theory and Full Professor at Dresden University of Technology, Germany. He is IEEE Fellow. His general interests are in the area of signal processing for communications and networking, applied information theory and communication theory. His research interests include multiple antenna communications, wireless interference networks, reliability and resilience, and physical layer security. He has published more than 190 journal articles, 17 book chapters, one book, four monographs, and some 340 conference papers. He was a co-recipient of the IEEE Signal Processing Society Best Paper Award. He and his colleagues were also recipients of the Best Paper Awards and the Best Student Paper Awards from the IEEE CAMSAP 2011, IEEE WCSP 2012, IEEE SPAWC 2012, IEEE ICUFN 2018, PETS 2019, and ISWCS 2019, and IEEE ICC 2024. Since 2017, he has been the Editor-in-Chief of the EURASIP Journal on Wireless Communications and Networking. Since 2024, he has been an Editor for IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON INFORMATION THEORY. He was on the editorial boards of the IEEE SIGNAL PROCESSING LETTERS, IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON SIGNAL PROCESSING, the IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON WIRELESS COMMUNICATIONS, IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON INFORMATION FORENSICS AND SECURITY, and IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON COMMUNICATIONS. Eduard has been general, technical program chair and organizing committee member of many international conferences of the last 15 years. Most recently, he was general co-chair of the ITG Workshop Smart Antennas / Conference on Systems, Communications, and Coding in 2023 in Braunschweig, and ISWCS 2021 in Berlin. He is tutorial chair for IEEE Globecom 2025, and EUCnC 2025 PHY Co-Track Chair. He has contributed as guest editor to several special issues in IEEE Journals. Most recently, he was guest editor in the IEEE Journal on Selected Areas in Communications for Advanced Optimization Theory and Algorithms for Next Generation Wireless Communication Networks (2024) and in IEEE Journal on Selected Topics in Signal Processing on Distributed Signal Processing for Extremely Large-Scale Antenna Array Systems (2025).
List-Recovery and (Non)-Applications
Mary Wootters (Stanford University)
Coding theory is the study of error-correcting codes, a fundamental tool used to protect data from noise. In coding theory, list-recovery refers to the ability to correct from a certain type of uncertainty, where multiple possibilities are received for each symbol that is sent. List-recovery has found many applications throughout computer science (and not just for protecting data from noise), for example in algorithm design, group testing, pseudorandomness, and cryptography. In this lecture, I’ll give an overview of list-recovery in coding theory and discuss some constructions as well as some applications. I’ll also discuss open problems and mention some motivating non-applications: That is, things that would be applications, if only we could solve some open problems about list-recovery!
▶ Speaker Biography
Mary Wootters is an associate professor of Computer Science and Electrical Engineering at Stanford University. She received a PhD in mathematics from the University of Michigan in 2014, and a BA in math and computer science from Swarthmore College in 2008; she was an NSF postdoctoral fellow at Carnegie Mellon University from 2014 to 2016. She works in information theory, theoretical computer science, and applied math; her research interests include error correcting codes and randomized algorithms for dealing with high dimensional data. Her Ph.D. thesis received the Sumner B. Myers Memorial Prize from the UMich Math Department and and the EATCS Distinguished Dissertation award. She is the recipient of an NSF CAREER award, was named a Sloan Research Fellow in 2019 and a Google Research Scholar in 2021; she was awarded the IEEE Information Theory Society James L. Massey award in 2022, and named the IEEE Information Theory Society Goldsmith Lecturer for 2024.
The Fall and Rise of Code-Based Cryptography
Jean Christophe Deneuville (French National School of Civil Aviation)
Code-based cryptography (CBC) was introduced by Robert J. McEliece back in 1978, and essentially disregarded for decades in favor of the much more compact RSA cryptosystem. However, the quantum threat lying on the latter makes CBC attractive again as a post-quantum candidate.
Using error-correcting codes to secure digital communications requires a different perspective from the usual telecommunication reliability view. Indeed, the relevant codes for cryptography usually have very small rates, and lengths around 10,000. Additionally decoding failures can yield key recovery attacks, it is thus of paramount importance to carefully choose appropriate parameters when designing a code-based primitive. In this lecture, we will dive into the fundamentals of code-based cryptography. I will review the hard coding theory problems usually considered to construct cryptographic primitives, discuss their possible instantiations with respect to different metrics, and also their hardness relatively to the best known attacks.
▶ Speaker Biography
Jean-Christophe is Associate Professor and Head of the Cybersecurity Research at the French National School of Civil Aviation (ENAC). He earned his PhD thesis in 2016, working on Post-Quantum Cryptography. His research interests include Cryptography especially based on Error Correcting Codes and Lattices, as well as associated Algorithms for solving hard problems. He contributed in the design of 6 cryptographic schemes in National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) standardization process, among which two are still running for standardization: BIKE and HQC.
Lightning Lectures
Channel Capacity and Coding for Reconfigurable Intelligent Surface Assisted Wireless Communication Systems
Mark Flanagan (University College Dublin)
Reconfigurable intelligent surfaces (RISs) represent a relatively new technology capable of shaping the radio wave propagation and thereby transforming a generally unpredictable wireless channel into a controllable and programmable medium. In this lecture, we will discuss how to maximize the achievable rate of MIMO systems assisted by RISs, including the practical case of discrete signaling at the transmitter. We will also present results regarding the performance analysis of polar codes over RIS-aided wireless communication systems. We will finish by discussing some open problems in the context of channel capacity and coding for RIS-assisted systems.
▶ Speaker Biography
Mark F. Flanagan (Senior Member, IEEE) is a Professor with the School of Electrical and Electronic Engineering, UCD, having been first appointed as SFI Stokes Lecturer in 2008. Prior to this, he held post-doctoral research fellowship positions with the University of Zurich, Switzerland, the University of Bologna, Italy, and the University of Edinburgh, UK. In 2014, he was a Visiting Senior Scientist with the Institute of Communications and Navigation, German Aerospace Center, Munich, under a DLR-DAAD Fellowship. He has published more than 180 papers in peer-reviewed international journals and conferences. His research interests broadly span wireless communications, coding and information theory, and signal processing. He was a recipient of the Stokes Lectureship Award from Science Foundation Ireland (SFI) in 2008 and the Consolidator Laureate Award from the Irish Research Council (IRC) in 2018. He was a recipient of the Best Paper Award at Globecom 2021. He served as TPC Co-Chair for the Wireless Communications Symposium at IEEE ICC 2024 and as Lead TPC Co-Chair for Track 1 “Physical Layer and Communication Theory” at IEEE WCNC 2024. He also served as TPC Co-Chair for the Communication Theory Symposium at IEEE ICC 2020 and at IEEE GLOBECOM 2022. He is currently serving as Secretary of the IEEE Radio Communications Society and as Vice-Chair for the Special Interest Group on Reconfigurable Intelligent Surfaces of the Signal Processing and Computing for Communications (SPCC) Technical Committee of the IEEE Communications Society. During the period 2012–2021 he served in the roles of Editor, Senior Editor, and Executive Editor for IEEE Communications Letters. He is currently serving as an Editor-at-Large for IEEE Transactions on Communications, having served as an Editor from 2021–2024.
Secure Integrated Sensing and Communication: Feedback Can Increase Secrecy Capacity
Onur Günlü (Linköping University)
Integrated Sensing and Communication (ISAC) is a key enabler for 6G systems, promising to optimize spectral efficiency, reduce hardware costs, and support new applications for vehicular networks, industrial automation, and augmented reality. However, ISAC systems face significant challenges, including the potential leakage of sensitive information between sensing and communication operations. This tutorial addresses these challenges by investigating a state-dependent broadcast channel model where a transmitter simultaneously conveys information and performs channel state estimation. Building upon recent advancements, we further investigate the role of transmitter actions, which are used, e.g., for beamforming vector design, in influencing channel states and enhancing security. These results are illustrated through practical examples, offering valuable design insights for future secure ISAC implementations to ensure robust and efficient integration of sensing and communication functionalities.
▶ Speaker Biography
Onur Günlü received his B.Sc. degree (Highest Distinction) in Electrical and Electronics Engineering from Bilkent University, Turkey in 2011, and his M.Sc. (Highest Distinction) and Dr.-Ing. (Ph.D. equivalent) degrees in Communications Engineering from the Technical University of Munich (TUM), Germany in 2013 and 2018, respectively. Following research associate and group leader positions at TUM, TU Berlin, and the University of Siegen, he joined Linköping University in October 2022 as an ELLIIT Assistant Professor and obtained tenure as an Associate Professor leading the Information Theory and Security Laboratory (ITSL) in August 2024. He became a Swedish Docent (Dr.-habil.) of Information Theory in December 2023 and an IEEE Senior Member in July 2024. He has received the 2025 IEEE Information Theory Society – Joy Thomas Tutorial Paper Award, the 2023 ZENITH Research and Career Development Award, and the VDE ITG 2021 Johann-Philipp-Reis Award. His research interests include distributed function computation, information-theoretic privacy and security, coding theory, integrated sensing and communication, and private learning. He serves as an Associate Editor for IEEE Transactions on Communications, EURASIP Journal on Wireless Communications and Networking, and Entropy, as a Board Member and Secretary of the IEEE Sweden VT/COM/IT Joint Chapter, and as a Working Group Leader for EU Cost Action 6G-PHYSEC.
Hypothesis Testing and Classification for Security
Stefano Tomasin (University of Padova)
Detection of security thereats can be seen as an hypothesis testing problem in the framework of statistics or as classification problem in the framework of machine learning (ML). The lecture will explore the relationship between the two approaches, shedding light on what should be expected from ML approach on the basis of solid results in statistics. Applications to physical layer security, in particular authentication, jamming detection, and in-region location verification will be discussed. In such contexts we will also provide results on optimal attack strategies based on information-theoretic measures.
▶ Speaker Biography
Stefano Tomasin received the Ph.D. degree from the University of Padova, Italy, in 2003. During his studies he did internships with IBM Research (Switzerland) and Philips Research (Netherlands). He joined the University of Padova where he has been Assistant Professor (2005-2015), Associate Professor (2016-2022), and Full Professor (since 2022). He was visiting faculty at Qualcomm, San Diego (CA) in 2004, the Polytechnic University in Brooklyn (NY) in 2007 and the Mathematical and Algorithmic Sciences Laboratory of Huawei in Paris (France) in 2015. His current research interests include physical layer security, security of global navigation satellite systems, signal processing for wireless communications, synchronization, and scheduling of communication resources. He is a senior member of IEEE since 2011 (member since 1999) and a member of EURASIP since 2011. He is or has been an Editor of the IEEE Transactions on Vehicular Technologies (2011-2016), of the IEEE Transactions on Signal Processing (2017-2020), of the EURASIP Journal of Wireless Communications and Networking (since 2011) and of the IEEE Transactions on Information Forensics and Security (since 2020). He serves also as a Deputy Editor-in-Chief of the IEEE Transactions on Information Forensics and Security since January 2023.
Organizing committee
Co-chairs: Marco Baldi (Polytechnic University of Marche), Luca Barletta (Polytechnic of Milan), and Enrico Paolini (University of Bologna)
Publicity chair and webmaster: Enrico Testi (University of Bologna)
Local arrangements co-chairs: Massimo Battaglioni (Polytechnic University of Marche), Paolo Santini (Polytechnic University of Marche)
Venue
The Colle Ameno Villa dates back to the 16th century. Between the 18th and the 19th centuries it was the main residence of the noble Camerata family, linked to Napoleonic circles. Napoleon himself stayed at the villa. At the beginning of the 20th century the entire estate was donated to a religious order in Ancona. In 1970, the Archdiocese of Ancona purchased Colle Ameno and created a Pastoral Centre with holiday home. Nowadays, the villa hosts several meetings, workshops, and schools.
Local attractions
Located on the Adriatic coast of Italy, Ancona is a charming city known for its picturesque views, rich history, and vibrant culture. From its stunning beaches to its historic landmarks, Ancona offers residents a high quality of life with a unique blend of tradition and modernity. Ancona boasts a rich cultural heritage, with historic landmarks such as the Arch of Trajan, Ancona Cathedral, and the Roman Amphitheatre. The city is also home of several museums, art galleries, and theaters, providing residents with ample opportunities to explore its artistic and historical offerings.
How to get there
Option 1: “Raffaello Sanzio” international airport (AOI), Ancona
- Directly connected with Munich (Lufthansa).
- Reachable in two hops (via Munich) from any other international airport in Europe and from the main American and Asian airports.
- 15 minutes driving from the villa (transfer from AOI to the villa included in the registration fee).
Option 2: “Guglielmo Marconi” international airport (BLQ), Bologna + Train
- Direct connections with almost all main European cities and some extra-EU destinations, including Dubai and Reykjavik.
- Reachable in two hops from any other international airport in Europe and from the main American and Asian airports.
- BLQ directly connected to the Bologna railway station, then 2 hours by train from Bologna to Ancona (trains from Bologna to Ancona are very frequent, ~1 per hour).
- Transfer from Ancona railway station to the villa included in the registration fee.
Students will have the opportunity to let us know how and when they will get to Ancona so that we can organize their transfer to the villa from the airport or from the railway station.
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