The Centre for Doctoral Training will produce at least 50 new PhD graduates trained to secure large-scale digital systems where boundaries between networks, data, and organisations have dissolved. This matters because the UK faces a growing shortage of cyber security professionals capable of handling modern, intermeshed infrastructures—such as energy grids, transport networks, and healthcare data systems—where a single vulnerability can cascade across multiple services. Current training often focuses on isolated systems, leaving a gap in expertise for the blurred, interdependent digital environments that now underpin daily life. If successful, the programme will create a pipeline of research leaders who combine technical skills—using state-of-the-art testbeds at Bristol and Bath—with an understanding of human and organisational challenges. These graduates will develop methods, tools, and techniques for securing critical infrastructure before failures occur. The training includes co-creation with industry, intellectual property and entrepreneurship skills, and a focus on responsible innovation. Over time, this could shift cyber security from reactive patch-fixing to proactive resilience, protecting the digital fabric that society quietly depends on.
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Digitalisation has generated a new era of technological innovations whose value can only be maximised with equally innovative cyber security. Our specific focus is on the cyber security of digitalisation and data in large-scale, intermeshed systems and infrastructures - where the boundaries between systems are blurred, data distributed with strong localisation and sovereignty claims, and there exist numerous, intricate inter-dependencies between service architectures. With the increasing shortage of cyber security professionals - both globally and in the UK - there is an urgent need for future research leaders who will have the capability to anticipate the challenges and develop innovative solutions to cyber security in a world where technology operates without concrete, clearly delineated digital boundaries. This capability is critical to ensure that digital infrastructures are secure and resilient and security professionals have suitable methods, tools, techniques and insights for securing the digital societal fabric. The Centre for Doctoral Training (CDT) 'Cyber Secure Everywhere: Resilience in a World of Disappearing System Boundaries' will train at least 50 new doctoral-level graduates to address this capability gap. We will do this by educating PhD students in both the technical skills needed to study and analyse blended infrastructures, while simultaneously training them to understand the challenges as fundamentally human too. The training involves close involvement with industry and practitioners who have played a key role in co-creating the programme. The training also leverages state-of-the-art research testbeds and labs at universities of Bristol and Bath as well as partner industry organisations and international research centres. The programme builds on the best practices developed as part of our current CDT on Trust, Identity, Privacy and Security in Large-Scale Infrastructures (TIPS-at-Scale). The first year will involve a series of taught modules providing core knowledge in cyber security (both technical and human & organisational aspects). There will be a programme of co-creation activities with industry as well as deep dives on particular research topics and industry challenges. This co-creation and collaboration ethos will continue throughout their research projects. Throughout the 4-year programme, students will also receive skills training on a number of fundamental computational and analytical techniques as well as intellectual property, entrepreneurship and commercialisation. They will work collaboratively with students in-year and across-years on shared problems and explore responsible innovation in real-world contexts. Through their projects and state-of-the-art experimental infrastructures, they will develop knowledge and expertise on rigorous, evidence-based research on cyber security. The CDT is an exciting, novel way to develop future research and industry leaders who are not only able to tackle cyber security in emerging and future digital infrastructures but can do so in a way that is based on rigorous experimental work and a core ethos of responsible innovation.
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