Investment boost for Future Communications

The Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council (EPSRC) – part of UK Research and Innovation - is investing £6m into advancing systems such as 6G, faster internet access and cloud computing. Three trailblazing platforms will receive £2m each to develop innovations supporting future communications and connectivity to the wider academic, business and international communities.

Jane Nicholson, EPSRC’s Director for Research Base, said: “Digital communications infrastructure underpins the UK’s economy of today and tomorrow and these projects will help support the jobs and industry of the future. Everybody relies on secure and swift networking and EPSRC is committed to backing the research which will advance these technologies.”

The funded projects are:

Platform 1: Network of Networks

Led by Professor Harald Haas, from University of Strathclyde, Glasgow’s Electronic and Electrical Engineering department and Director of the LiFi Research and Development Centre, TITAN is a consortium of 17 universities supported by four associate partners -the Digital Catapult, the Bristol Digital Futures Institute (BDFI), the Compound Semiconductor Centre (CSC) and the Fraunhofer Centre for Applied Photonics (CAP) - aiming to establish an open and productive platform for research collaboration and engagement across a large number of academic and industrial partners supported by a management structure which enables a flexible expansion of the platform if necessary.

Platform 2: Wireless and Wired Systems and Spectrum

Led by Professor Dominic O’Brien, Professor of Engineering Science, University of Oxford, the Hub brings together eight teams from the Universities of Belfast, Bristol, Cambridge, Oxford, Southampton, Strathclyde, Imperial College and UCL, with leading expertise in a wide range of wired and wireless technologies, in order to address the challenge of providing high-speed, low-latency access to internet services for future fixed and mobile users.

Platform 3: Cloud and Distributed Computing

Led by Professor Julie McCann, Vice-Dean (Research) for the Faculty of Engineering, Imperial College London, The CHEDDAR (Communications Hub for Empowering Distributed clouD computing Applications and Research) will drive research and networking across the UK academic community to develop collaboration mechanisms to engage pockets of excellence around the UK and build a cohesive research ecosystem that nurtures ECRs and emerging blue horizon ideas; inform the design of new communication surfaces that cater to emerging computing capabilities and end-user applications; and create integrated design of hierarchical connected human-machine systems that promote secure learning and knowledge distribution.

This progression will mean leveraging existing funding from across the landscape, including EPSRC investments and non-UKRI investments such as the recently funded UK Telecoms Innovation Network. Connecting the wider community will also mean engaging with institutions not directly involved with the platforms which is something EPSRC will be actively encouraging.

More information online