University of Surrey secures £35m for new 5G research centre

The funding bid, made by the University to the UK Research Partnership Investment Fund (UKRPIF) for £11.6million in government money, is underpinned by approximately £24m from a consortium of mobile operators and infrastructure providers. The consortium includes Huawei, Samsung, Telefonica Europe, Fujitsu Laboratories Europe, Rohde-Schwarz and AIRCOM International. The specialised 5G Innovation Centre will aim to stimulate significant expansion in UK telecommunication research, innovation and the provision of broadband mobile internet services, with downstream benefits for economic growth. "Although the UK played an active role in the creation of 2G (GSM) cellular standards, it has increasingly fallen behind in succeeding generations 3G and 4G standards," said Professor Rahim Tafazolli, head of the University of Surrey's Centre for Communication Systems Research (CCSR). "The University's industry partners have identified this proposal as the single biggest opportunity for the UK to regain a world leading position in the development of 5G technologies and for the development of vibrant businesses around the technologies." It is hoped that the new 5G centre will provide a unique facility which will not only attract international telecoms giants to conduct research and development on new 5G standards in the UK, but will also link to the Government's Connected Digital Economy initiative.