Centre for Secure Information Technologies (CSIT) - Phase 3

Cyber-attacks such as those recently perpetrated on Solarwinds, Colonial Pipeline and Viasat are scaling at an alarming rate. Resilient cyber security technologies are vital to ensure that society can safely and confidently adopt new digital technologies. As our world becomes increasingly digitally connected for utilities, travel, healthcare, education, and commerce, and with the increasing use of artificial intelligence, cyber-physical infrastructure and the commercialisation of space-based entities, new security vulnerabilities are also emerging. This for novel cyber security solutions and secure technology supply chains presents key opportunities for research, innovation and economic impact.

Based at Queen's University Belfast, CSIT is a global research and innovation hub for cyber security, and the UK's Innovation and Knowledge Centre (IKC) for cyber security research. CSIT is therefore in a strong position to make further and significant contributions, maintaining the UK's international research reputation and enhancing its economic and business competitiveness. Through its unique open innovation model with trusted industry partners, CSIT is pioneering research and innovation to protect citizens and businesses and drive economic impact. CSIT's unique model of innovation incorporates a significant engineering and professional services capability differentiating it from other cyber security academic research centres. As a delivery partner of LORCA, the DCMS funded cyber security accelerator, CSIT supported the growth of 70+ UK cyber security companies through knowledge transfer and product development.

CSIT has successfully delivered during IKC Phases 1 and 2, and over the next 5 years we will consolidate and raise our level of impact nationally and internationally, continuing to fulfil our key role linking industry, government and academic expertise to promote economic growth. Under the theme of "Securing Complex Systems", CSIT will research and develop new technologies, acting as a nucleating point to accelerate and promote disruptive business opportunities that arise for the wider benefit of the UK cybersecurity industry. This will enable CSIT to seed new research activity in emerging areas of cyber security including, Semiconductor Chip Security, Secure and Resilient Cyber-Physical Infrastructure, Securing Machine Learning, as well as targeting Space Security as a new sectoral focus, with the aim of attracting new funding to drive collaborative research and innovation in these areas.
To raise our level of impact, CSIT will build Hubs of Impact with industry partners in one or more of the research areas identified above, modelled on the proposed 'Cyber-AI Technologies Hub' in which CSIT will partner with eight cyber security technology companies to collaborate on the development of new solutions to shared challenges.

We conservatively estimate that the £3M investment for CSIT3 could help to unlock up to £10.7M in economic impact across the UK, facilitated by job creation through research projects, support for economic clusters across the UK, engineering support for start-ups and scale-ups, and through public engagement with potential investors to the UK.

CSIT3 targets over the next 5 years include: (a) £12M in public research and innovation funding; (b) £900k in industry membership fees; (c) at least 5 examples of successful translation and IP activity from CSIT research; (d) 10 funded industry-academic collaborative projects; and (e) 1 Hub of Impact. Based on CSIT's track record, we fully expect to deliver additional impact beyond these targets and further strengthen the UK's reputation as a global leader in cyber security research and innovation.