The intersection between information technology, society and security is becoming exponentially complex. Researchers at the University of Brighton are working on new approaches to create secure ways for people to make use of the huge potential that today’s connected and interactive world offers.
The world of information technology has changed considerably over the past 30 years. A generation ago, computers were mostly stand-alone devices with minimum connectivity, used by professionals, specialists and enthusiasts to perform specialised tasks.
Today, computers, smartphones and even household appliances are widely connected and used to store, exchange and gain instant access to information and data wherever it is stored.
Building on the centre's existing strong links with industry and the public sector, we have established and nurtured strong strategic relationships with partners across five key application contexts: health, education, culture, public administration and services, critical infrastructures.
In each of these areas we provide strong and regular collaborations through Knowledge Transfer Partnerships, consultancy, and small and large research projects:
Health: We have significant experience of applying our research in health-related applications, including security and privacy models for health data exchange, technology acceptance in ehealth and mobile applications development for NHS health records. We have established working collaborations with important stakeholders both nationally (NHS trusts, Farr Institute of Health Informatics Research) and internationally (e.g. Bambino Ges. Paediatric Hospital).
Education: We have applied our research on user-centred design approaches to the design of mobile and ubiquitous devices and applications, particularly in the domains of learning. Moreover, we have applied semantic analysis of student learning.
Culture: We have significant experience of applying our research in the Culture sector, including analysis of 3D content in digital repositories, historical text mining of archives, and game-based crowd-sourcing of curatorial work. We have extended collaborations with relevant stakeholders including the Royal Pavilion and Museums, Historic England and the Natural History Museum, to name few of them.
Public administration and services: We have applied our research to develop platforms that empower citizens to achieve desired levels of privacy and public administration authorities to improve transparency with respect to privacy of citizen data. We have collaborated with international stakeholders from national authorities (e.g. the Italian Ministry of Finance) and local authorities (e.g. Municipality of Athens) and we are developing further collaboration opportunities with new entities, such as The Pensions Regulator.
Critical Infrastructures: We have developed novel modelling and visualisation techniques and have applied them to case studies to decrease the threat of data and identity theft, understand 5G security vulnerabilities and simulate propagation of security threats on connected infrastructures. We have developed collaborations with large stakeholders from industry (e.g. NOKIA, Fujitsu) and critical infrastructure owners (e.g. Maritime ports and Telecommunication companies such as OTE).
Application Domains: We apply our work in various important sectors of human society and we work with organisations in those areas through Knowledge Transfer Partnerships (KTPs), consultancy, and small and large research projects.