Academic Centre of Excellence in Cyber Security Research -University of Oxford

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In collaboration with a range of departments across the University, we are developing a Cyber Security Centre. It will incorporate and extend the work of eleven academics drawn from Computer Science, Oxford Internet Institute and Oxford e-Research centre, together with other Oxford Academics from as wide a spectrum of disciplines as we can manage. Mindful of the known difficulties of pursuing genuine inter-disciplinary research (including the challenges of finding funding, finding publication venues, and undertaking research recognised as leading-edge by each of the contributing disciplines), we have consulted at some length on the means to make such engagement fruitful. As a result, we anticipate that our new Centre will have both a real and a virtual existence. As a real centre, the Computer Science department provides office space - eventually co-located for all who wish to share expertise in Cyber Security Research. We intend to expand this to provide both laboratory space for experimental work with security systems, and also to host environments where usability experiments and evaluations can be undertaken. We will also offer to host visiting researchers from academia, industry, and government, and will hold short, intensive by-invitation workshops as the need arises. A measure of co-location of this kind is essential for the development of serendipitous conversations and research ideas. A virtual existence will enable us to integrate members of other departments into the Cyber Security activity, without forcing them to lose touch with their own disciplines. This is important both for individuals' own career development, but also in order that the best live scholarship can be brought to bear upon the difficult problems encountered in this domain. By actively maintaining these academic connections, we expect to be able to form collaborations to respond to new research challenges, and prospectively to explore and shape responses to open problems. As more and more disciplines - in academia and outside - depend on strong inter-connectivity and shared data, we see our existing shared activity across departments as a mere shadow of possible paths to impact in the future. As a centre of excellence, we will aim to be a principle point of contact for those inside and outside the University seeking to engage with leading research in Cyber Security. We will actively seek to develop new partnerships to embrace the range of disciplines necessary to make a significant impact in the improvement of theory, technology, techniques, policies and practice in cyber security.