Early Career Researchers Survey

SPRITE+ Showcase: Research Snapshot prize winner announced!

SPRITE+ Expert Fellow Spotlight – Charis Rice

Rising Star: Iain Reid

Reaching out to SPRITE+ community

New Career and Funding Opportunities

News and Publications from the SPRITE+ Community

Interview study: legal aspects of the use of smart devices

Security research and innovation capabilities in academia

CISO - board engagement survey

The observatory for monitoring data-driven approaches to COVID-19 (OMDDAC)

UKRI trustworthy autonomous systems programme: responsibility

Cyber security academic startup accelerator programme: year 5, phase 1

CREST 2021 Commissioning Call

Future threats and opportunities: competition for students

Assessing & Improving AI Trustworthiness: Current Contexts, Potential Paths

ECE Spring 2021 Seminar Series

Emerging Talents in NDM and REA Workshop - 2021

New Security Paradigms Workshop 2021

Call for Papers: Security and Privacy in Distributed Healthcare Environments

CyberSA 2021: Trustworthy and Transparent AI

7th Competitive Advantage in the Digital Economy (CADE) Conference

IEEE Security & Privacy Issue 1 • Jan.-Feb.-2021

ACM Transactions on Privacy and Security Volume 24, Issue 2February 2021

IEEE Cipher Electronic Issue (EI) 159, January 24, 2021

Computers & Security Volume 103 April 2021

Cyberpsychology: Journal of Psychosocial Research on Cyberspace Vol 15, No 1 (2021)

In conversation with Dr Lucy Mason

Contact Details

Subscription Details

Help our Early Career Researcher Stanislaw Piasecki from Horizon CDT who is looking to interview people dealing with data protection challenges. Head to his recent Horizon CDT blog to learn more.

Academic RISC is conducting a survey to widen engagement between Academia and the Government's security requirements.

Research Institute for Sociotechnical Cyber Security (RISCS) is looking to improve UK CybSec practice. Participate in the survey if you are a CISO who communicates with the Board about cyber security of your organisation.

SPRITE+ Expert Fellows Marion Oswald and Alexander Babuta have secuired a collaboration between Northumbria University & the Royal United Services Institute (RUSI), funded by AHRC, OMDDAC researches data-driven approaches to Covid-19, focused upon legal, ethical, policy and operational challenges.

Apply for funding to support novel and creative multidisciplinary research on responsibility for autonomous systems. Total fund: £3,000,000. Closing date: 13 May 2021, 16:00 UK time.

Individuals based in a UK academic institution can apply to join the cyber security academic startup accelerator programme (CyberASAP). Total fund: £800,000. Closing date: 3 Mar 2021, 11:00 UK time.

The call is open to higher education institutions, research organisations, charities, commercial companies, and individuals from the UK and overseas, who can demonstrate a capability to deliver a high-quality programme of research. Check the call topics on apply.

The Defence Science and Technology Laboratory (Dstl) has launched a quest to uncover visions of the future from the brightest student minds in the UK. Entrants must answer the question: "what do you believe to be the future threats or opportunities facing UK defence and security over the next 25 years?".

During the workshop, experts will discuss the interrelated challenges and trade-offs involved in designing trustworthy AI systems.

The spring program shares innovations and poses hard questions for next-generation communications, electronics, computing and sensing technologies. Specific seminars include "Securing Internet Applications from Routing Attacks" by Yixin Sun, and "Safety and Security of Computer-based Systems" by Barry W. Johnson.

The Emerging Talents Workshop in the areas of Naturalistic Decision Making (NDM) and Resilience Engineering (RE) will take place on 21st June 2021, in conjunction with the Joint Meeting – 15th Conference on Naturalistic Decision Making and 9th Symposium on Resilience Engineering 21–24 June 2021, France.

The New Security Paradigms Workshop (NSPW) seeks embryonic, disruptive, and unconventional ideas on information and cyber security that benefit from early, in-depth, and constructive feedback. Submission deadline: 21 May 2021, 23:59 (UTC -11).

This Focus Theme presents new paradigms and prominent applications for secure, trustworthy and privacy preserving data access, sharing and storage. Check the "Methods of Information in Medicine" journal for more details.

CyberSA is dedicated to the advancement of the principles, methods and applications of situation awareness on Cyber Systems, Business Information Systems, Computer Network Defence, Critical National Infrastructures, Cyber Physical System, and Internet of Things.
Call for papers has been extended to 5 Mar 2021.

This year’s primary themes are Resilience, Sustainability and Trust & Privacy in the Digital Economy. Submission Deadline: 26 Mar 2021, at 23:59 AoE (Anywhere on Earth).

The issue includes articles on smart cities, privacy protection, education, and forensics.

The issue includes articles on mixed binaries exploitation, dynamic code analysis, financial malware, privacy metrics design, and multi-factor authentication.

The issue includes articles on SolarWinds, covert operations, email security, books reviews, and conference reports.

The issue includes articles on autonomous vehicles, machine learning for intrusion detection, cyber risk assessment, harware security verification, secure tender evaluation, and privacy-preserving technologies among other things.

The issue includes articles on selective exposure in online news feeds, virtual reality and trauma, and adolescent cyberbullying and problematic technology use.

PETRAS will be hosting Dr Lucy Mason who Lucy will be discussing her career pathway from the civil service through to becoming Chair of the Governance Board for the Security of Digital Technology at the Periphery (SDTaP) Programme and Managing Consultant in Defence and Security, PA Consulting.
The event takes place on 25 Feb 2021, 14:00-15:30 GMT.

Help shape future direction of our ECR progamme.

SPRITE+ are planning the forthcoming programme of ECR activities and we want to make sure it captures our ECRs' needs. To help us achieve this, we're asking our ECR members to complete a short (LESS THAN 5 MINUTES!) survey. All responses are anonymous unless you provide identifying information.

We are delighted to announce the best poster prize winners from our recent Research Snapshot presentations at the SPRITE+ Showcase.

The judging panel had the very difficult task of selecting the prize winners for best poster. The Research Snapshots were of exceptionally high quality and detailed novel and exciting ideas. After much deliberation, the judges selected the following:

First Prize:

Arianna Schuler Scott, University of Oxford, ‘Using dynamic consent to protect privacy: designing engaging research practices over time’
Arianna has also participated in a short Q&A.


Highly commended:

Amel Attafa, Abertay University, ‘Cyber Diplomacy: diplomatic actions in international relations on cyberspace’

Asad Ali, Identity Methods Ltd., ‘Mitigating Authorisation Flaws with Hydrid Enforcement of Category-Based Access Control’

Emma Boakes, University of Portsmouth, ‘Security convergence: Building the evidence base’

Keenan Jones, University of Kent, ‘Hacktivism and Social Media: Analysing the Anonymous Collective on Twitter’

We continue to publish Career Journey interviews with SPRITE+ Project Partners, Experts, and Members.

The spotlight today is on Charis Rice – Assistant Professor at the Centre for Trust, Peace and Social Relations (CTPSR) at Coventry University, an Associate Fellow of the Higher Education Academy, and a SPRITE+ Expert Fellow.

Our second article in the ECR 'Rising Stars' Series.

Learn more about Iain's research into deception online and offline, his work at the Institute of Criminal Justice Studies, and more!

SPRITE+ is a thriving Digital TIPS community, which every member can tap into for collaborations, news, and announcements.

Whether you want to reach out to the entire community, specific individuals, or via social media, the linked page below (log in to view) describes the different ways you can make that connection.

We regularly collate PhD studentships, academic positions, and other opportunities related to digital TIPS.

This month's round up includes PhD studentships in Artificial Intelligence, Cybersecurity, and Digital Health; lectureships in criminology; professorship in cybersecurity, and assistant professor roles.

Every month we ask SPRITE+ members to share their news with the community. All previous publications from members are available on SPRITEHub.

Congratulations to Lynsay Shepherd and team who have recently published "Re-territorialising the policing of cybercrime in the post-COVID-19 era: towards a new vision of local democratic cyber policing". A pre-print is available via Abertay University.

Congratulations to Joseph A. Hamm, and Scott E Wolfe who have recently published "Using Public Priorities To Disentangle the Dimensions of Procedural Justice and Trustworthiness In Police–Citizen Interactions ".

Congratulations to Sotiris Moschoyiannis and team who have recently published "A novel Intrusion Detection System against spoofing attacks in connected Electric Vehicles". This research has also been featured in the European Commission's Community Research and Development Information Service (CORDIS), and in the Cyber Security Competence for Research and Innovation (CORCODIA) article.

Congratulations to our Project Partner CybSafe who have raised $7.9 million in a Series A funding round led by IQ Capital.

Congratulations to Martin Innes and team who have published several reports on disinformation prior to the US election. The reports feature in an article by Cardiff University, as well as in an article by the Guardian.

Congratulations to Lokke Moerel and Paul Timmers who have recently published "Reflections on Digital Sovereignty".

Congratulations to Martin Joseph Gallagher who has recently published "Nexus or Not? The relationship between terrorism and organised crime".
Together with William Graham, and Lesley Diack, Martin has also published "Benefits of implementation of mobile devices with frontline officers in Police Scotland 2019-2020".

Congratulations to Marie Oldfield, Joel Smalley, and Murray McMonies who have submitted written evidence on "Data Transparency and Accountability: Covid 19" (DTA 13).

Congratulations to Richard Knight, and Jason R. C. Nurse who have been recently featured in Sophos Evolve 2020 write up titled "What should you say if you have a data breach?". The paper describing the framework is available on arXiv.
Jason has also published on "Cybersecurity Awareness".

Congratulations to Joseph Da Silva who has recently published "Producing ‘good enough’ automated transcripts securely: Extending Bokhove and Downey (2018) to address security concerns".

Congratulations to Yangyang Bao, Weidong Qiu, and Xiaochun Cheng who have recently published "Efficient and Fine-grained Signature for IIoT with Resistance to Key Exposure".
Together with Hongfei Zhu, Ye Wang, and ChonghuaWang, Xiaochun Cheng has also published "An efficient identity-based proxy signcryption using lattice".

Congratulations to Edgar A. Whitley and team who have recently published "Mechanisms of power inscription into IT governance: Lessons from two national digital identity systems".

Congratulations to Nobuko Yoshida who has received the Suffrage Science award, celebrating the achievements of women in STEM.

Congratulations to Irini Katsirea who has recently published 2 blogs via the Sheffield Political Economy Research Institute (SPERI): one on "Covid-19, ‘fake news’ and the future of platform regulation", and another one on "Part 2: How to reign in Big Tech and cure ‘fake news’ without killing free speech".