Academic Centre of Excellence in Cyber Security Research - University of Kent

Security has been an area of research strength in the University for several years.
There are strong technical research groups in the Faculty of Sciences: in the School of Engineering and Digital Arts with work on identity management; and in the School of Computing, with work including trust management and malware analysis. Staff such as Prof Andy King and Prof David Chadwick have very strong international profiles, have attracted significant external funding and are included in the Faculty of Sciences' plan as an area for future expansion. Another new lecturer in Security has been appointed in Computing to start in January 2015.
We have established an Interdisciplinary Centre for Cyber Security in 2012, which brings together the technical experience in Sciences with researchers from across the Social Sciences Faculty, in particular from highly rated Schools of Law, Psychology, and Social Policy, Sociology and Social Research. This centre provides a focus for cross-disciplinary research in end-to-end security, including human and social factors in addition to the technical solutions. Several cross-discipline externally funded research projects are in place, and many more in preparation.

This proposal aims to support the Advanced Centre of Excellence in Cyber Security Research through financial contributions to events, publicity material including webpages, and the day to day running of the centre through time for its director and administrative support.

The Advanced Centre of Excellence in Cyber Security Research, University of Kent is expected to have societal and economic impact:
- Economic impact. Cyber security is essential for all modern economic activity, not just electronic commerce, but many others relying on internet communication and web services.
This kind of impact is achieved in a number of indirect ways. Security errors and vulnerabilities are reported as a matter of routine to writers and distributors of software and hardware involved, as well as on internet forums where the practical security community collects reports of known security problems. Tools developed for finding security errors tend to be made publicly available through open source projects, or through spin-off companies. The more general techniques underlying such tools are shared through the Centre's state of the art events, published academically, in textbooks, and included in postgraduate and undergraduate university courses. Design principles which avoid particular types of security problems are shared in similar ways, as well in direct contact with companies, e.g. as facilitated by Kent Innovation and Enterprise and supported by the Centre's publicity events, materials, and website.

- Societal impact Secure and reliable internet communication is essential for governmental and other societal activity in much the same way as it is for economic activity. The methods for achieving this kind of impact are essentially the same as above for economic impact.