Every day, news headlines prove that the computer systems we rely on cannot be trusted. Despite years of effort, cyber attacks remain routine, and new technologies promise to make the problem worse. This project, CRANE, aims to fix the way the UK does cyber security research itself—by building a permanent, interdisciplinary learned society that unites technical experts, social scientists, and policymakers. The core problem is fragmentation. Cyber security research is scattered across computer science, psychology, law, and economics, with no sustained structure to connect them. CRANE will create a community-led methodology to identify emerging global threats and map UK strengths, while supporting career development and equality of voice for diverse researchers. It will also give businesses, government, and the third sector a single point of access to relevant experts. If successful, CRANE could reshape the UK’s cyber ecosystem—making it easier to spot game-changing developments early, to train the next generation of cross-disciplinary researchers, and to translate academic insight into real-world defences. The project directly supports the UK National Cyber Strategy, particularly its goals of strengthening the national cyber ecosystem and maintaining technology advantage. The result would be a more resilient, better-coordinated research community that can respond faster to the threats that make those daily headlines.
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Whilst cyber security has become part of 'business as usual', daily news headlines demonstrate that despite many years of intense activity, we cannot trust the systems we rely upon. New technologies promise to exacerbate such problems indefinitely. Those unwelcome imperatives raise perennial and persistent needs for research within both technical and social disciplines, and in novel combinations of . Our ambition is to make a lasting enhancement to the pursuit of cyber security research in the UK. We highlight the distinctive features of our bid: We will unite researchers in a new inter-disciplinary permanent learned society. We will develop a rigorous community-led methodology and use it to identify emerging global trends and national strengths in cyber security. We will support career development and equality of voice of diverse researchers able to understand and exploit the cross-disciplinary nature of our subject. We will build our inclusive community regionally and nationally through Special Interest Groups (SIGs) and shared events with local areas of interest and through EDI improvement We will provide a connection-point allowing businesses, government, and the third sector to access relevant researchers and experts nationally and internationally. We have four objectives: Objective 1: Help to deliver the UK National Cyber Strategy (Pillar 1: UK Cyber Ecosystem; Pillar 3: Technology Advantage). Objective 2: Support, develop, and nurture research in cyber security within and across academic disciplines, throughout the UK, with transformative challenge from wider stakeholder groups. Objective 3: Identify and articulate the need and opportunity for significant/game-changing new developments in cyber security. Objective 4: Promote the development of a learned society in cyber security to enable a long-term sustainable community of research. We will address several priorities in delivering on those objectives: Developing Researcher Careers, ; Equality; Diversity; Inclusion Integrating the Academic Community Facilitating Partnerships with Business, Government, and other sectors Promoting and Developing Regional Strengths International knowledge exchange
Adam Joinson (Co-Investigator)Andrew Martin (Principal Investigator)Lynne Coventry (Co-Investigator)Mark Ryan (Co-Investigator)Steven Murdoch (Co-Investigator)
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