Out-Law / Your Daily Need-To-Know

Public funding for research into new digital data security solutions available

12 Feb 2015, 5:18 pm

Businesses could win a share of £4 million in UK public funds for research projects aimed at uncovering new data security solutions, under a new competition being run by Innovate UK.

Funding could be won for research programmes aimed at combatting "the growing risks of disruption to internet-enabled businesses and their digital supply chains", it said.

The public body, whose funding stems from the budget of the UK government's Department for Business, Innovation and Skills (BIS), said it would provide up to 60% of funding for SME-led projects and up to 50% of funding to research initiatives being led by larger organisations. The projects it will generally support will have a total cost of between £150,000 and £750,000 and are expected to last between one and two years, it said.

To win funding, research must be aimed at improving data security in "legacy, existing or new internet-based systems that are part of an organisation's digital supply chain". Innovate UK could support research into innovate new data security solutions in software, hardware, infrastructure or process form, it said.

"We want to see a business model, sector or industry as the main focus of the proposed innovation," it said. "We will therefore fund projects conducting industrial research whose outputs increase data protection, awareness and resilience."

Innovate UK said the increasing connectivity of devices in the so-called 'internet of things' (IoT) age presents particular challenges on how to address data security.

"The internet of things demonstrates the almost endless possibilities for greater collaboration between sectors," Innovate UK said. "However, data not typically exposed to public networks is now being used in ‘big data' analytics across multiple organisations, which may or may not have a relationship with the original data owner. Data has become a key asset that is being traded between organisations and may come from a variety of sources, including end-users themselves."

From 23 March, businesses seeking funding for their research will be able to register their interest in the Innovate UK programme. Innovate UK will then ask some of those seeking funding to make a formal application for support. Those applications will be assessed by an "independent panel of experts", it said.