THE JOINT SECURITY AND RESILIENCE CENTRE

The UK’s security and resilience sector consists primarily of small to medium sized enterprises (SMEs), in addition to the large defence and security primes. These SMEs play a crucial role in UK national security and in the protection of critical national infrastructure. ADS security and resilience SMEs are directly engaged to Government through all of ADS’ policy work, as well as through representation within the UK Security and Resilience Industry Suppliers Community (RISC) – for which ADS is the Secretariat – and the Security and Resilience Growth Partnership (SRGP).

The main strand of work ongoing in the SRGP is the Joint Security and Resilience Centre (JSaRC). JSaRC will act as the “front door” for the entire security and resilience sector to access the complex security machinery of Government. It will be Government’s primary means of coordinating industry support, refining requirements, understanding the industry offer and sharing strategic priorities.

JSaRC will have a cross-Government reach and will work closely with Department of International Trade, Department for Transport, the Foreign and Commonwealth Office, Cabinet Office and across the Police, Border Force and other law enforcement and security agencies. The Centre will incorporate the past work of the Security Innovation and Demonstration Centre (SIDC).

JSaRC’s aims are to:
1. Deliver a joint and cohesive response to the UK’s national security challenges between the security and resilience sector and Government;
2. Drive the delivery of the right solutions for Government;
3. Support the growth of the British security and resilience sector.

In order to achieve these aims, JSaRC will:

  • Work with Government business units to identify and frame their requirements in order to get the most useful response from industry;
  • Provide continuous engagement enabling government and industry to be jointly aware of emerging threats and evolving capabilities capable of countering them;
  • Support the work of OSCT to build security capability overseas to reduce threats to the UK and generate opportunities for UK companies;
  • Bring together industry with end users so that there is a clear understanding of how newly-developed solutions will have to integrate;
  • Drive innovation in the security industry by accelerating the development of high potential, comprehensive solutions.

JSaRC will engage across the entire sector, but due to the structure of the sector, will obviously have a significant SME focus. JSaRC recently closed a call for project proposals, to which many SMEs submitted their ideas and proposals.

For more on the ADS #SMEsuccess campaign, visit the homepage here.