Opportunities From the SPRITE+ Network

There are a number of networks and research groups that exist outside of our community that could bring value to our work. The aim of this article is to illustrate this with reference to a personal case study undertaken over the past nine months. The network I chose to participate in was the Security, Privacy, Identity and Trust Engagement NetworkPlus, SPRITE+ for short.

This article will show where these networks can add value to our work and also how industrial partners can access these groups to mutual benefit. In order to explain this it is important to understand how these networks are funded in the UK.

UK Research and Innovation (UKRI)

The UK Government seeks to fund innovation through (what was until recently) the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy (BEIS). In turn BEIS sponsors a public body known as UKRI, which then supports seven research councils that span a number of disciplines, Research England, which is responsible for supporting research and knowledge exchange at higher education institutions in England, and the UK’s innovation agency, Innovate UK. UKRI should therefore be seen as the source of funding for the collaborations covered here.