Call for expression of interest in Cyber Security Academic Startups Programme (Year 2)

EOI call for grant-funded competition in January to encourage the commercialisation of cyber security ideas from academia.

Innovate UK, in partnership with the Department for Digital, Culture, Media & Sport and KTN, are planning to launch a grant-funded competition in January to encourage the commercialisation of cyber security ideas from academia.

The Academic Startups Programme is seeking to address one of the key challenges in UK innovation, namely the need to increase the exploitation of good cyber security ideas by academia to the best commercial effect.

Register your interest now to be kept informed.

The competition is building on the successful pilot run earlier this year which culminated in a Showcase Event where the seven finalists presented their prototypes or Minimum Viable Products to a room of invited industrialists and investors. Full details and a highlights video are available here.

The initial programme is planned to run in Q1 2018* and the academic participants that are selected will focus on refinement of their ideas and development of their value propositions. Subject to further funding in Q2 2018, participants that successfully pass a selection panel, with experts from the cyber security sector, will go onto the next phase including market testing/validation of their proposition and development of a minimum viable product.

Full details are expected to be available in early January but, as the competition will only be open for a short time, anyone from a UK Academic Institution, with a cyber security idea is strongly encouraged to register interest now to be kept informed.

Note : For the purposes of this programme, ‘Cyber Security’ refers to the protection of information systems (hardware, software and associated infrastructure), the data on them, and the services they provide, from unauthorised access, harm or misuse. This includes harm caused intentionally by the operator of the system, or accidentally, as a result of failing to follow security procedures.

*Competition funding is not yet confirmed but this competition and programme is being promoted in advance to ensure participants have as much advance notice as possible.