Reminder: Registration for the Expert Fellows Meeting 2022 is now open!

Workshop follow-up: Building a community of interest in communicating cybersecurity

SPRITE+ Director, Professor Emma Barrett to speak at Digital City Festival 2022

SPRITE+ 'Top Tips' series continues: Being an effective PI

SPRITE+ funded project: First RespondXR publish their first blog

New blog post: THRIDI: Trust in Home: Rethinking Interface Design in IoT

SPRITE+ Expert Fellow Wendy Jephson to speak at the University of Manchester Digital Trust & Security Seminar

Innovate UK: 'Digital Security by Design Four Nations Roadshow' event co-hosted by SPRITE+


Rising Stars: Early Career Researcher stories

News and Publications from the SPRITE+ Community

Funding Opportunities


Upcoming Events


Job and PhD opportunities

InterAct is now accepting proposals from researchers for their two Systematic Review funding topics

Summer school - Digital Trust and Security in the Post-COVID World: Theory and Research (20-24 June)

Call for papers

Contact Details

Subscription Details

ESRC: Digital Society Network Plus, closing date: 1 March 2022, max. award: £4M. Read more here.

Cyber security academic startup accelerator programme 2022-23: phase 1, closing date: 2 March 2022, total fund: £800K. Read more here.

UKRI: Molecules to landscapes: building interdisciplinary capabilities, closing date: 24 March 2022 , max. award: £200K. Read more here.

Rosetrees Trust: Artificial Intelligence/ Machine learning and Medicine, closing date: 28 April 2022, total fund: £300k. Read more here.

Horizon Europe: Civil Security for Society, closing date: open call, total fund: £1.6B. Read more here.

Internet Society Foundation: Research Grant Programme, closing date: open call, max. award: $200K. Read more here.

Connected Everything: Call for Events, closing date: open call, max. award: £2.5K. Read more here.

EPSRC: discipline-hopping in ICT, closing date: open call, total fund: £1.5M. Read more here.

UKRI: Pre-announcement - Turing AI World-Leading Researcher Fellowships: rounds two and three, details and closing date: TBC. Read more here.

SASIG: Re-thinking the Kill Chain in Industrial Control Systems, 1.00-12.00, 9 March 2022, online. Register here.

REPHRAIN Masterclass: Using legal databases to study tech-enabled harms, 13.00-14.30, 9 March 2022, online. Register here.

PETRAS: Prof Steve Benford (Nottingham University) discussing the Carolan Guitar Project, 14.00, 14 March 2022. Contact c.coulton@ucl.ac.uk for more details.

RISCS Annual Showcase Event 2022RISCS: Annual Showcase Event 2022, 10.00 – 12.00, 16 March 2022, online. Register here.

SASIG: 2022 report: Insider threats are (still) on the rise, 14.00-15.00, 18 March 2022, online. Register here.

University of Manchester Digital Futures: Cross Theme Workshop - Memes & Methods, 9.30 to 16:30, 21 March 2022, Kilburn Building (University of Manchester). Register here.

Professor in Connected Systems, University of Warwick. Closing date: 3 March 2022. Read more here.

Visiting Lecturer in Computer Science (Hourly Paid), University of Hertfordshire. Closing date: 7 March 2022. Read more here.

Lecturer in Computer Science, Keele University. Closing date: 10 March 2022. Read more here.

Lecturer/Senior Lecturer in Computer Science (User Experience), Kingston University. Closing date: 10 March 2022. Read more here.

Research Fellow: HCI/Cybersecurity, University of Strathclyde. Closing date: 11 March 2022. Read more here.

EPSRC ICASE Studentship - Manufacturing Data Capture, Data Analysis and AI to Support Digital Twin Roll-Out. Closing date: 15 March 2022. Read more here.

PhD Studentship: Software Programming Abstractions for High Assurance Secure System on Chip Devices, University of Bristol. Closing date: 16 March 2022. Read more here.

Postdoctoral Research Associate, Royal Holloway, University of London. Closing date: 25 March 2022. Read more here.

Programme Leader Computing, QA Higher Education. Closing date: 3 April 2022. Read more here.

Behavioural Scientist (Cyberpsychology), CYBSAFE. Read more here.

Doctoral Training Programme, LINAS. Read more here.

InterAct will fund six systematic reviews (two per year) through the commissioned research programme. This is an open call for proposals (Round One), of up to four months’ duration. Submission deadline: 1 March, 12.00. Read more here.

This course will enable you to understand the nature of digital harms, from online crimes to the malicious manipulation of information, the influence of behaviours and attitudes, and transcending the digital boundaries to effect physical and psychological attacks. Find out more here.

WACCO 2022 calls for papers. Submission deadline: 1 March 2022. Read more here.

19th International Conference on Security and Cryptography (SECRYPT 2022). Submission deadline: 14 April 2022. Read more here.

ICICS 2022 (24th International Conference on Information and Communications Security), September 5-8, 2022, University of Kent. Submission deadline: 21 March 2022. Read more here.

"Security, Privacy and Trust Management for IoT-based Blockchain". Submission deadline: 31 August 2022. Read more here.

"Security and Privacy in IoT Enabled Modern Applications Using Deep/Machine Learning and Blockchain Technology". Submission deadline: 30 September 2022. Read more here.

11/12 April 2022, De Vere Cranage Estate, Cheshire.

Join us at our in-person Expert Fellows' meeting in April at the spectacular De Vere Cranage Estate in Cheshire, where we have a great couple of days planned including guest speakers, a social dinner, and lots of networking time. We've already received lots of registrations from researchers representing STEM, social sciences and humanities as well as key stakeholders and project partners. There is still time to register to join the conversation and secure your place.

During our meeting we'll be working together to scope the future of digital Trust, Identity, Privacy, and Security (TIPS). Stakeholders - including industry reps, government, and UKRI - will be closely involved and our recommendations will inform future funding and policy decisions.

In January, SPRITE+ held an online community-building workshop focused on communicating cyber security. The aim of this workshop was to facilitate the building of potential collaborations and to explore opportunities for academics to partner with non-academic organisations to identify and explore the challenges of communicating cybersecurity from multiple disciplinary perspectives.

Find out more and view the outputs of this event - including speaker presentations and discussion points.

9 March, 13.00-14.00, Keynote Theatre, Manchester Central.

SPRITE+ Director, Professor Emma Barrett, will be speaking on the panel for 'Greater Manchester - a global digital influence in cyber' at the Digital City Festival 2022 at Manchester Central on 9 March!

Find out more about the expo, including speakers and agenda.

21 March 2022, 10.00-11.00 via MS Teams.

The next session in the SPRITE+ top tips series will focus on hints and tips for being an effective PI. Our top tips series aims to provide useful practical advice to equip early career researchers with the skills and knowledge to deliver high quality impactful research in their future careers.

This session will be led by Bill Lee, Professor in Materials for Extreme Environments at Bangor University - register now.

SPRITE+ funded project team, 'First RespondXR: Digital vulnerability of immersive training for first responders' report on the mapping and next steps of their project.

Find out more in the blog written by Research Assistant, Niamh Healy (University College London).

We’ve published a report by Cigdem Sengul (Senior Lecturer in Computer Science, Brunel University), Arthi Manohar (Lecturer in Design, Brunel University), and Jiahong Chen (Lecturer of Law, University of Sheffield) following their SPRITE+ funded workshops focused on rethinking interface design in IoT in the home.

16 March 2022, 13.00-14.15, Alliance Manchester Business School.

SPRITE+ Expert Fellow, Wendy Jephson (CEO & Co-Founder of LetsThink, Former Head of Research & Ideation - Market Technology, Nasdaq) will be speaking about designing technology to engage the world's thinking at the next Digital Trust and Security seminar at the University of Manchester.

Find out more and register now.

Digital Security by Design are running four roadshow events across the four nations targeting local business and academic communities, with each event focusing on a different theme. SPRITE+ co-hosted the event in Bletchley Park, England on 21 Feb titled 'the history of computers', and SPRITE+ Expert Fellow, Daniel Dresner, will be speaking at the ‘Exploring new technologies in cyber security’ event in Glasgow on 3 March.

Find out more about the roadshow and other Innovate UK events.

Within the SPRITE+ network, our Early Career Researchers (ECRs) are tackling important and challenging issues. They are using innovative methods; making new discoveries; asking important questions. They are the next generation of leaders. They are the Rising Stars.

We publish a different Rising Star each month as an opportunity for ECRs to showcase their research. If you'd like to showcase your research story please read more about the process.

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

SPRITE+ Expert Fellow, Jonathan Foster has been awarded by the AHRC and funded as Principal Investigator (PI) of the project 'Understanding Fairness in Data-Driven AI for Mental Health'.

Ken Banks has published his new book, 'The Pursuit of Purpose: Part Memoir, Part Study - A Book About Finding Your Way in the World'.

Lenka Pelechova collaborated with synthetic biologists and computer scientists on global cell repository based on principles of RRI and their article was published this month: Versioning biological cells for trustworthy cell engineering.

SPRITE+ Expert Fellows, Dr Kate Dommett, Dr Edgar A. Whitley and Professor Lizzie Coles-Kemp have been added to the DCMS College of Experts.

SPRITE+ Expert Fellow, Leonie Tanczer, has released a new publication titled 'Using Machine Learning Methods to Study Technology-Facilitated Abuse: Evidence from the Analysis of UK Crimestoppers’ Text Data'.

Mohammad Shojafar and colleagues have recently published SAKE*: A Symmetric Authenticated Key Exchange Protocol with Perfect Forward Secrecy for Industrial Internet of Things”, "Deadline-aware and energy-efficient IoT task scheduling in fog computing systems: A semi-greedy approach", and ""Intelligent Reflecting Surface Empowered Wireless Powered Caching Networks”.

Xiaochun Cheng and colleagues have recently published 'Chaos Theory Based Compression Solution for Secure and Energy Efficient Data Forwarding in Body-to-Body Network', 'SG-PBFT: a Secure and Highly Efficient Distributed Blockchain PBFT Consensus Algorithm for Intelligent Internet of Vehicles'e, and 'A New RFID Ultra-Lightweight Authentication Protocol for Medical Privacy Protection in Smart Living'.

SPRITE+ Expert Fellow Marie Oldfield has been a panel member at Chatham House alongside Google and Rolls Royce on the future of society and AI. She has also spoken at the Operational Research Society Consultants Summit on her paper, 'Analytical modelling and UK Government policy'.