Atkins and Cranfield Uni partner to tackle cyber security challenges
Atkins and Cranfield University have announced a collaboration to create a new cyber research area that will help to protect manufacturing businesses and critical national infrastructure organisations from the danger of cyber attack.
A new professorial chair in Cyber-Secure Engineering Systems and Processes at the university will be funded by Atkins. Leading a new research area within the Manufacturing Informatics Centre, the role will focus on developing an understanding of, and responses to, digitally-based threats. The centre will address the challenges associated with cyber threats to increasingly connected and complex engineering systems and processes, by creating innovative engineering solutions which protect both systems and knowledge, in multiple manufacturing sectors.
Professor Rajkumar Roy, Director of Manufacturing at Cranfield, said: “Modern complex engineering systems can sometimes be less secure than traditional ones, and cyber threats are a major and growing challenge.
“We aim to develop the next generation of manufacturing engineers and managers who are able to protect manufacturing systems and machines from cyber threats. Cyber-secure ‘Internet of Things’ technology development will have a major impact on implementing Industry 4.0, which uses the internet to connect ‘Smart Factories’ with their supply chains, across a number of sectors.”
“The introduction of this new chair and our new MSc in Cyber-Secure Manufacturing will provide an opportunity to serve our industry needs in the UK and to influence the design of next generation engineering systems.”
Russell Cameron, Technology Director at Atkins, said: “We are excited by this opportunity to partner with Cranfield to bring their leading academic cyber research and resources together with our own design, engineering and cyber capabilities and experience. I have no doubt that this partnership will help our critical national infrastructure and manufacturing clients meet the increasingly complex challenges they face in improving their cyber resilience.”