CSIT – part of Queen's Institute for Electronics, Communications and Information Technology (ECIT) – will use this investment to drive forward its own research programmes, support the creation of more businesses and jobs and provide skills and training for the UK cyber security industry. It will allow the creation of a nine-month pre-accelerator programme for cyber security entrepreneurs, as well as supporting 25 additional staff across engineering, research and commercial disciplines.
Kevin Baughan, director of technology and innovation at Innovate UK, said CSIT has delivered significant UK economic growth through the original joint investment with EPSRC, contributing to more than 950 new jobs in the Belfast cyber security cluster. "By extending funding for a further five years, we underline our support for their commitment to raise the commercialisation bar even higher. This will help companies of all sizes grow through leveraging the excellent UK science base in cyber security."
Since CSIT was established six years ago, it has developed technologies for secure machine to machine authentication, a novel mobile biometric authentication solution and algorithms for detecting anomalies in complex networks.
CSIT's Professor John McCanny said: "This further investment in CSIT recognises how, over the last five years, we have successfully blended world class research and innovation to deliver economic impact nationally, internationally and regionally. This funding will allow us to further accelerate new value creation in this sector, drive business venture creation and build capacity for the industry by providing it with high calibre Masters and PhD graduates."
