Research Grant Funding

A summary of competitive research grants, program hubs, and industrial innovation fellowships totaling over £13.8M in total project funding.

Active & Past Research Grants in the UK

Role: Co-Principal Investigator (Leading Cyber Security Research)
Timeline: 2023 – 2028
Partners: Over 35 partners including Department for the Economy (NI), Department for Energy Security & Net Zero (DESNZ), Ofgem, National Grid, Siemens, Toshiba, Jacobs UK, RITICS, Wales & West Utilities, and Northern Powergrid.
Description: The single energy networks hub funded in the entire UK via a highly competitive stream (Success Rate: ~3%). Focuses on protecting the interconnected cyber-physical interfaces of next-generation net-zero energy distribution networks.
Impact: Advances Green Plan 2030 initiatives, shapes active Ofgem regulatory security policies against systemic grid disruption, and builds deep human capital by driving Early Career Researcher (ECR) growth in cross-industrial workshops.

Role: Lead Principal Investigator (Bristol / Swansea)
Timeline: 2023 – 2026
Partners: Imperial College London, Adelard, Siemens, Airbus, Thales, and Carnegie Mellon University (CMU, USA).
Description: Jointly funded by the Defence Science and Technology Laboratory (DSTL) as one of only three selected projects nationwide (Success Rate: ~5%). Evaluates combined data-driven and model-driven security verification structures.
Impact: Embeds resilience-by-design principles into critical automated systems, bridging security protections and physical safety rules into toolsets for automated systems globally.

Role: Principal Investigator (with Synoptix Ltd)
Timeline: 2023 – 2026
Description: An industry-impactful partnership leveraging applied machine learning and artificial intelligence to design system digital twins optimized for real-time cyber-attack anomaly detection.
Impact: Accelerated the launch of an independent enterprise cyber security group within Synoptix (expanding to 7 specialized staff) running TRL 7/8 tools. The collaborative output catalyzed an expanded £2M UKRI-EPSRC maritime autonomous systems resilience initiative.

Role: Fellow & Principal Investigator
Timeline: 2023 – 2024
Description: Awarded one of only two nation-wide specialized fellowships by the National Cyber Security Centre (NCSC) Research Institute in Trustworthy Inter-connected Cyber-physical Systems (RITICS), focusing on Digital Twin Security.
Impact: Shaped national critical infrastructure strategy, establishing foundational security design guidelines published on the official NCSC portal and directly supporting the massive 50-million node Transit Hub digital twin architecture.

Role: Principal Investigator
Timeline: 2025 – 2026
Partners: SEMI-USA, Techworks UK, Bavarian Chip Alliance, Applied Materials, ASML, Tokyo Electronics, and NCSC RITICS.
Description: A highly selective transatlantic initiative (Success Rate: ~7%) evaluating deep security trust constraints inside semiconductor production loops and global chip supply networks.
Impact: Built a unified global validation framework across 32 international manufacturers, decreasing compliance overheads, minimizing questionnaire fatigue, and directly aligning with long-term Research, Innovation, and Enterprise (RIE) supply chain targets.

Co-I Researcher Automated Incident Response and Recovery in ICS
- Institution/Funder: iTrust, SUTD / National Research Foundation (NRF), Singapore
Co-I Researcher Systematic Attack Generation for Industrial Control Systems
- Institution/Funder: CyLab, Carnegie Mellon University (CMU), USA
Co-I Researcher Singapore-UK Cyber Security Joint Grant Call (2015)
- Partners: Awarded in collaboration with Imperial College London.