Newsroom University of Manchester

University of Manchester recognised as Academic Centre of Excellence in Cyber Security Research

Thu, 21 Mar 2024 09:34:31 +0000

The University of Manchester has been named an Academic Centre of Excellence (ACE-CSR) in recognition of its internationally leading cyber security research.

The University is one of 21 universities to receive the status by the Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council (EPSRC) and the National Cyber Security Centre (NCSC) - the UK's lead technical authority on cyber security.

It is one of several initiatives outlined in the UK government’s ‘Protecting and promoting the UK in a digital world’, which describes how the government is working with academia and industry to make the UK more resilient to cyber attacks.

The scheme aims to enhance the quality and scale of academic cybersecurity research and postgraduate training being undertaken in the UK; make it easier for potential users of research to identify the best cybersecurity research and postgraduate training that the UK has to offer; and help to develop a shared vision and aims among the UK cybersecurity research community, inside and outside academia.

The Centre will be led by colleagues in the University’s , which has a long history of world-leading cyber security research and will be directed by and co-directed by Professor Daniel Dresner and .

Nicholas Lord, Professor of Criminology at The University of Manchester, said: “We are very proud to be recognised as an Academic Centre of Excellence in Cyber Security Research. Receiving this status is further recognition of our long-standing commitment to world-leading cyber security research and key to the realisation of our five-year research plan.

“Our cyber security research has been a focal point for the University since founding our Digital Futures platform in 2018, with our sociotechnical approach to cyber security coming together recognisably in 2021 by the creation of our Centre for Digital Trust and Society - a truly unique Centre with a strong interdisciplinary nature.

“Over the next five years we hope that we can use our ACE-CSR recognition to strengthen our collaborations with other ACEs and NCSC, as well as enhance our collaborations with the Greater 91ֱ�� Combined Authority with a view to integrating cyber security into the city region’s business community.”

Professor Colette Fagan, Vice-President for Research at The University of Manchester, added: “I am thrilled that our University has been recognised as an Academic Centre of Excellence in Cyber Security Research. This achievement, led by our Centre for Digital Trust and Security, underscores our commitment to pioneering cyber security research and innovation through interdisciplinary collaborative research. This approach and ambition is vital to ensure that the benefits of the rapid pace of technological change are developed in ways that ensure a safe and more secure digital world for our citizens and organisations.”

The University was required to show evidence of NCSC’s tough standards to be considered, including: commitment from the University's leadership team to support and invest in the University's cyber security research capacity and capability; a critical mass of academic staff engaged in leading-edge cyber security research; a proven track record of producing high impact cyber security research; and sustained funding from a variety of sources to ensure the continuing financial viability of the research team's activities.

Chris Ensor, Deputy Director Cyber Growth at NCSC, said: “I’m delighted that 21 universities have been recognised as Academic Centres of Excellence in Cyber Security Research, including four who have received the award for the first time. These recognitions are testament to the dedication of academics, support staff and senior management who have ensured that cyber security remains high on the university’s agenda. And they demonstrate that the UK has a growing number of world-class universities carrying out cutting-edge research into all areas of cyber security. We very much look forward to working with them over the coming years to tackle the most difficult cyber security challenges.”

The Centre for Digital Trust and Society at The University of Manchester is one of few cyber and digital security and trust research centre in the UK led from social science, rather than a computer science or engineering department.

It focuses on barriers to, and enablers of, trust in digital and cyber technologies and has more than 80 active researchers affiliated to the Centre.

The Centre prides itself on its strong interdisciplinary engagement across the University and supports six multi-disciplinary research clusters: Trusted Digital Systems, Digital Technologies and Crime, Workplace and Organisational Security, Democracy and Trust, Privacy and Trust and Advanced Mathematics.

Dr Mustafa, Senior Lecturer in Systems and Software Security at The University of Manchester, said: “While our cybersecurity research across the Department of Computer Science provides the fundamentals and foundations of our Centre’s research, our social science academics provide the societal relevance and context: secure cyber and digital systems are grounded in everyday human behaviours and interactions. It is for this reason that we coordinate our sociotechnical cybersecurity research activities ensuring the people and social factors remain central. We do this by engaging in cross-cluster and cross-disciplinary research activities, realising our sociotechnical work through internally and externally funded research.”

Over the next five years, researchers will work on a wide range of projects from cyber security controls, building secure and safe (AI) software to counter threats, through understanding offending and victimisation of cybercrimes, to the application of cyber security research in development and industry, as well as the cyber risks to political-economic systems and organisational workplaces, and the need for data privacy and security.

The ACE-CSR will continue to hold strong national and international links - in particular - to work with its partners in the Greater 91ֱ�� Cyber Ecosystem and the wider North West Cyber Corridor.

University of Manchester research informs European Commission Recommendation on energy poverty

Tue, 14 Nov 2023 15:46:52 +0000

The European Commission has published a report drawing on evidence from The University of Manchester, which advises member states on how to take to tackle energy poverty across the EU.

The including the prioritisation of measures to address root causes of energy poverty, a socially just transition to renewables, training for policy makers, and the development and scaling up of financing schemes.

The report refers to the University of Manchester-led report , and the project that the University partners in, that promotes the emergence of local energy market players with a socio-ecological agenda. A number of publications stemming from the , established and led by the researchers at The University of Manchester, are also referenced.

Accompanying the Commission Recommendation, the EU guidance on energy poverty cites a further University of Manchester publication, .

On the Recommendation, and the inclusion and citation of research from The University of Manchester, Professor Stefan Bouzarovski comments, “The extensive presence of University of Manchester-led academic and policy work in these high-level policy documents testifies to the far-reaching impact of our energy research. For over a decade, we have been working hard to address energy injustices across the UK and Europe. Some of our efforts are now reflected in these new legal frameworks, which will impact the lives of millions of people across Europe and beyond.”

New Leonora Carrington art history volume features feminist arts and curatorial practice of SALC’s Dr Jenna Ashton’s

Thu, 08 Dec 2022 15:52:54 +0000

A new publication on the influence of the late artist Leonora Carrington on contemporary artists will feature Dr Jenna Ashton's feminist arts and curatorial practice.

Dr Ashton is an artist, curator and producer, and Lecturer in Heritage Studies at the Institute for Cultural Practices at The University of Manchester. Her interdisciplinary research contributes to community practices for social and environmental change, and to evolving arts-based and mixed-methods research within heritage studies.

The new book by Catriona McAra, published by 91ֱ�� University Press, includes an interview with Dr Ashton on the project "House of Opposites" 2020-21, created in collaboration with artists Alice Kettle, Alison Duddle, and Eleanor Mulhearn. The InsideOutsideHouse artist collective which includes Dr Ashton, went on to evolve this work at AirSpace Gallery for the British Ceramics Biennial in 2021.

12 stunning murals which reveal a remarkable Victorian vision of Manchester

Tue, 08 Nov 2022 09:00:00 +0000

An Art History expert from The University of Manchester has written the first in-depth account of the story behind the twelve extraordinary murals in 91ֱ�� Town Hall, which he says reveal a remarkable Victorian vision of the city.

Ford Madox Brown spent 16 years creating the extraordinary works depicting the creation, development and success of Manchester in the Great Hall from 1878-93, but they were overlooked and semi-forgotten by the art world in the UK until the 1980s in part because academic and popular writers tended to focus on French art.

However, Senior Art History Lecturer Dr Colin Trodd says they are without doubt the most important public art works of their day, and the paintings are now the subject of his new book .

In the book, he explores the features that define the murals – subject matter, dynamic movement, and unusual combinations of seriousness and comedy. He also explains how Brown used historical and contemporary records to support his vision, as well as examining Brown’s difficult relationships with local politicians and civil servants, and looking at why Brown’s account of the development of Manchester appeals to modern viewers.

During his research, Dr Trodd discovered that Brown was an outspoken critic of industrialists, factory owners, and most local politicians and civil servants, and that he provided financial support for impoverished artists and unemployed workers despite not being wealthy himself.

He also found that Brown overcame personal tragedies at the time he was working on the project - his brilliantly gifted son died just before the commission, his wife became alcohol-dependent during the period he worked on the murals, and he had a stroke when they were almost completed.

“His murals transcend traditional models of history painting by focusing on the idea of human vitality. As Brown saw it, history painting should be an exercise in understanding how ordinary people interact with broader social forces and powers. The displays of exuberance in the murals confirm Brown's concern with the idea of human freedom - and what people do when confronted by representatives of the political establishment.”

New award RBOC N+, Resilience Beyond Observed Capabilities

Tue, 14 Jun 2022 23:53:22 +0100

The RBOC N+, Resilience Beyond Observed Capabilities is a new network of researchers, institutions and industry partners working on forecasting how cities and their systems will deal in 2051 with resilience to security threats. The network brings together academics from the universities of Coventry (lead institution), Cardiff, Lancaster, Ulster and 91ֱ��. Prof Emma Barrett (SoSS), Prof Duncan Shaw (AMBS) and Dr Nuno Pinto (SEED) lead the cross-Humanities team. Together with Prof Pierluigi Mancarella (Engineering) they will be coordinating several of the main challenge areas for the project.

The RBOC N+ will develop new research and engage with multiple stakeholders in resilience to create impact-led outputs to understand how cities will respond, in the long-term future, to security shocks.

Greater 91ֱ�� is the main case study of the project, in which a digital twin of GM will be developed to allow policy-makers, defence-linked and urban-linked stakeholders to test and debate urban development and security development options to create the city of the future.

Updated information about the project can be found at .

Faculty of Humanities to host first British Academy lecture

Tue, 22 Feb 2022 12:18:36 +0000

On Monday, 7 March 2022 the University will welcome David Wengrow FBA, Professor of Comparative Archaeology at University College London.

The lecture, titled ‘For an anthropology and archaeology of freedom’ will draw on Professor Wengrow’s collaboration with the late Professor David Graeber. The lecture will argue the importance of an ethnography of freedom to the foundations of anthropology.

Professors Wengrow and Graeber recently co-authored the New York Times bestselling ‘The Dawn of Everything: A New History of Humanity’.

The public lecture will be followed by an audience Q+A and a drinks reception, all hosted at Alliance 91ֱ�� Business School. Tickets are available to book online:

New report suggests pandemic policing undermines public health measures whilst disproportionately targeting Black and Minority Ethnic communities

Mon, 13 Sep 2021 09:01:00 +0100

A new raises concerns about the policing of the pandemic and shows that racially minoritised communities have been most harshly affected - being more likely to be stopped by the police, threatened or subject to police violence and falsely accused of rule-breaking and wrong-doing.

The report, titled A threat to public safety: policing, racism and the Covid-19 pandemic, argues that lockdown conditions, new police powers, and histories of institutionally racist policing have combined to pose a threat to already over-policed communities, and the most marginalised and vulnerable sections of society.

Published by the Institute of Race Relations (IRR), and authored by academics from the

Centre on the Dynamics of Ethnicity (CoDE) based at the University of Manchester, the report is published in the context of increased scrutiny around policing, particularly following significant mobilisations under the banner of Black Lives Matter and ‘Kill the Bill’ demonstrations against the government’s Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts bill.

Researchers spoke to members of the public from across England to talk about their experiences of coronavirus policing and found evidence of police consistently failing to use PPE or observe social distancing regulations, with a pregnant woman describing an encounter where officers refused to wear masks when asked. Such practices, the authors argue, completely undermine any public health approach to the pandemic, and highlight how – with regard to the transmission of Covid-19 - the police pose a health risk to members of the public.

The report’s lead author Dr Scarlet Harris said:

‘The Covid-19 pandemic ushered in a period of extraordinary police powers which arrived in a broader context of racist over-policing and police violence. This report draws on extensive conversations with people from racially minoritised groups and communities living across England over the course of the pandemic. The findings dismantle the myth that the police contribute to public safety. Instead, they demonstrate how policing such a ‘crisis’ has reproduced profound harms for those from racially minoritised groups and communities.’

Remi Joseph-Salisbury, another of the report’s authors, said:

‘The evidence in this report really urges us to question the State’s reliance on the police to solve social and public health problems. Despite being central to the government’s handling of the pandemic, policing too often threatens rather than protects public safety, particularly for people of colour.’

Liz Fekete, Director of the IRR said:

‘This research gives a voice to those who have had uncivil, discriminatory or brutal encounters with the police and points to the dangers that the public health model poses for “policing by consent”. The evidence of the over-policed reveals that those who argue that mistrust of the police is based on hearsay, myth-making and a victim mentality, are hopelessly out of touch.’