About SPRITE+

Introduction

SPRITE+ brings together people involved in research, practice, and policy with a focus on digital contexts. We are a 'one stop shop' for engagement between academic and non-academic communities - a way for these communities to connect and a platform for building collaborations across the spectrum of issues relating to security, privacy, identity and trust. We are funded until 31 August 2027 under the Engineering and Physical Science Research Council (EPSRC) Digital Security & Resilience Theme (grant references EP/S035869/1 and EP/W020408/1)

SPRITE+ is led by a consortium of five universities: University of Manchester (lead institution), Imperial College London, Lancaster University, Queen’s University Belfast, and University of Southampton. Our Management Team is supported by a multi-disciplinary group of 140+ Expert Fellows and non-academic Project Partners. We currently we have 18 Partners from different sectors, including industry, government, law enforcement, and civil society.

Mission and goals

"To deliver a step change in engagement between people involved in research, practice, and policy relevant to trust, identity, privacy, and security with a focus on digital contexts."

Goal 1: Build and develop the research community

Research in digital TIPS has tended to be dominated by engineering disciplines. SPRITE+ activities also draw in researchers in humanities, behavioural and social sciences, and from other areas of ‘security science’. Our access fund and support for early career researchers fosters inclusive participation. We act as a ‘network of networks’, developing productive and mutually supportive relationships with cognate networks and organisations.

Goal 2: Engage stakeholder communities

SPRITE+ creates opportunities for industry, university, government, law enforcement, and third sector partners to engage constructively with the broad research community. Our aim is to build a collaborative community of researchers and stakeholders, together tackling the most important and complex challenges to TIPS in the future Digital Economy.

Goal 3: Draw up roadmaps for research

Working with academic and non-academic partners, we've identified broad Challenge Themes (CTs) related to current and future problems. We fund activities that explore and test new ideas related to these CTs, and that create new collaborations between academic disciplines and non-academic partners. The outputs will be research roadmaps, articulating the current ‘state of the art’ and highlighting priority gaps in knowledge. SPRITE+ activities will thus shape the direction of research and investment within and beyond its funding period.