Helping your business

We have strong links with business and industry, driven by our commitment to ensure that our research finds applications in real-world technology.

Our academics have direct experience of working with a wide range of organisations and our portfolio of clients is diverse and continually expanding.

We have a longstanding record of industrial collaboration with some of the world’s leading companies and agencies and our students are highly regarded for their awareness of the commercial environment.

We also have an outstanding reputation for the establishment of spin-off companies to further develop our research findings.

Our business activities:

• research collaborations – we seek both short- and long-term research partners and many companies and organisations are involved in our doctoral training centres, research groups and research facilities
• consultancy – through our professional consultancy company, ECS Partners
• applied research – our applied research centre, IT Innovation, is advancing a wide range of information technologies and their deployment in industry and commerce

Research

We are committed to ensuring that new knowledge developed from our research makes an impact. Much of our leading-edge research takes place with support from our industrial partners and we have experience of multi-million pound, long-term collaborations. We currently lead Responsible AI UK (RAI UK). This is a significant international project to understand how AI should be developed to benefit people, communities and society.

Facilities

The Southampton Nanofabrication Centre in the £120M Mountbatten Building is a state-of-the-art facility for microfabrication and high-spec nanofabrication, providing a wide range of characterisation capabilities. The leading research cleanroom in Europe, the Centre has a uniquely broad range of technologies, combining traditional and novel top-down fabrication with state-of-the-art bottom-up fabrication. This facility, and the unique Tony Davies High Voltage Lab which offers testing and research facilities to the power generation and supply companies, provide invaluable links between the School's academic expertise and the needs of business and industry.

We also have a cyber security test bed and digital forensics facilities including crime scene room.

Spin-out companies

ECS strongly encourages an entrepreneurial attitude in both staff and students. Over the years ECS research and enterprise has led to the establishment of an extraordinary number of spin-out companies, particularly in the area of photonics, telecommunications and software engineering.

We are also proud to be the home of EPrints, a world-leading open source digital repository, founded and run by ECS staff for over 20 years.

Some of our recent successful spin-outs include:

• AccelerComm - supercharged wireless
• ArchAI - de-risking the construction industry 
• Aura Vision – AI-powered, in-store analytics.
• CareIQ – AI for chronic care management.
• Sentient Sports – AI for sports recruitment strategies
• Stardust – putting users in control of how their data is used online
• Verso Biosense – groundbreaking fertility sensors

ECS Partners

In addition to the creation of spin-off companies, ECS has an established company, ECS Partners Ltd, which provides consultancy to industry and business from the research expertise of staff and postgraduate students. Contracts can vary from half a day to several years, and research ranges from marketing and corporate strategy to revenue and product protection.

IT innovation

The School has its own applied research centre, IT Innovation, based at the University of Southampton Science Park. IT Innovation has more than 10 years of success in applying new technologies from the research community to problems in industry and commerce, delivering proofs-of-concept, demonstrators and novel operational systems to companies such as BAE Systems, the BBC, Boeing, ESA, GSK and VW Audi. IT Innovation has a substantial portfolio of collaborative projects supported by EC and UK programmes, complemented by professional services.

Continuing Professional Development Courses

We offer continuing professional development (CPD) courses in areas of cyber security, AI and digital forensics. These are aimed at computer scientists and engineers through to executives and decision-makers.

Learn more about our continuing professional development courses

Many of our superb facilities may be of interest to industry partners for commercial use, including: