Computer scientists from the University of Southampton will guide software design to help curb cyber attacks on UK businesses in a major new research programme announced by Digital Secretary, Oliver Dowden.

Researchers in Electronics and Computer Science (ECS) have been awarded over £1.2M to transform the development of tech infrastructure and digital devices to reduce errors and security vulnerabilities that could have been exploited by hackers.

The Holistic Design of Secure Systems on Capability Hardware (HD-Sec) project, led by Principal Investigator Professor Michael Butler, will receive funding from the Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council as part of a £10M investment in nine projects by the UK government.

Oliver Dowden, Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport, unveiled the 'Digital Security by Design' programme today at London Tech Week Connects.

Almost half of businesses (46 per cent) and more than a quarter of charities (26 per cent) have reported experiencing cyber security breaches or attacks in the last 12 months, according to the Cyber Security Breaches Survey 2020.

"Cybersecurity threats are causing damage to business and wider society and, if left unchecked, these threats will continue to grow," Michael says. "Poorly designed software is a significant source of cyber security vulnerabilities. Even if software has been verified correct, it is likely to be running on hardware that is vulnerable to cyber-attack because of poor memory protection."

Current software development practice relies heavily on an iterative ‘build-test-fix’ approach to software correctness and, while testing of software is essential, it is very time-consuming and usually incomplete, often resulting in design faults being discovered long after they were introduced in the development lifecycle – making them very expensive to fix once discovered.

"Our vision is the transformation of security system development from an error-prone, iterative build-test-fix approach to a correctness-by-construction approach whereby formal methods guide the design of software in such a way that it satisfies its specification by construction," Michael explains. "The impact of this will be to reduce overall development costs, while increasing trustworthiness, of security-critical systems."

The University's research will be guided and validated by a range of security-critical industrial case studies with support from industrial partners Airbus, Arm, Altran, AWE, Galois, L3Harris, Northrop Grumman and Thales.

The HD-Sec project is supported by ECS's Professor Vladimiro Sassone, a Professor of Cyber Security who holds a Royal Academy of Engineering Research Chair and is Director of the University's NCSC/EPSRC Academic Centre of Excellence for Cyber Security Research; Dr Thai Son Hoang, a leading researcher in refinement-based formal methods, including Event-B; Dr Leonardo Aniello, noted for his research on cyber security and distributed systems topics; and Dr Dana Dghaym, who has experience of tool development and verification in railway and maritime autonomous systems.

The University of Southampton has been ranked fourth in the UK for Electrical and Electronic Engineering in subject rankings of the Complete University Guide 2021.

The subject has risen three places in the latest Guide and is one of 15 Southampton subject areas placed within the top 10 nationally. Computer Science at Southampton also jumped three places to now be ranked 11th in the UK.

Southampton has a long and successful history in Electrical and Electronic Engineering teaching and research. There is a massive skills shortage in both disciplines and graduates are actively sought after by employers.

Professor Paul Lewin, Head of Electronic and Computer Science (ECS), says: "The position of ECS in the Complete University Guide 2021 for both its Electrical and Electronic Engineering and Computer Science courses is a clear reflection of the quality of our staff and their teaching, our outstanding facilities and the demand employers have for our graduates."

The University is placed 17th overall out of 130 universities listed in the Guide’s annual league table - a rise of three places making it the highest climber of any university within the top 20 this year.

University of Southampton President and Vice-Chancellor, Professor Mark E Smith, says: "With all the uncertainty around at the moment it is really pleasing to see this very positive move in the latest Complete University Guide rankings, with the University of Southampton back inside the top 20 overall which very much reflects our emphasis on quality, be it teaching or research. It confirms that students receive a very high quality education here.

"As a nationally-relevant, world-leading university, Southampton will continue to press forward thanks to the dedication of our staff and students who I want to thank for keeping us amongst the top echelons of UK universities."

Autonomous systems such as driverless cars, drones and robots will become trusted and trustworthy through a collaborative £12 million research platform based at the University of Southampton.

The Trustworthy Autonomous Systems Hub, led by Electronics and Computer Science’s Professor Sarvapali Ramchurn, will deliver world-leading best practices for the design, regulation and operation of autonomous systems that are socially beneficial.

A team from the Universities of Southampton, Nottingham, and King's College London will engage with over 60 project partners in areas ranging from computing and robotics to social sciences and the humanities.

"Whether it's a self-driving car doing the school runs or a virus tracing app alerting us to potential infections, autonomous systems of all types will increasingly test our trust in their design, regulation, and operation," Sarvapali says.

"We will need to work across disciplines and sectors, and take an inclusive approach, to ensure that autonomous systems are trustworthy by design and trusted by individuals and the wider society. Our international partnerships will also ensure that the programme will have a global impact and position the UK as a world leader in this area."

The Hub is the first element of a £33 million investment from UK Research and Innovation (UKRI) Trustworthy Autonomous Systems programme, which originated through the Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council’s (EPSRC) Big Ideas initiative. Read the full story on the main news page.

Scientists at the University of Southampton are developing an efficient nanostructured power source that can convert heat into electrical energy.

The new generation of flexible thermoelectric generators (TEGs) could harvest body heat to drive wearable technologies and produce electrical power from sources like hot water pipes.

Professor Steve Beeby, Head of the Smart Electronic Materials and Systems Research Group, is contributing to the three-year research programme that is combining inorganic materials with controlled 3D nanostructures and organic conducting polymers (OCPs) to enhance the technology’s power factor.

Wearable technologies such as smart watches, smart glasses and smart pacemakers have caused a paradigm shift in consumer electronics in recent years, however these devices are still powered by batteries that need frequent replacement or recharging.

TEGs would present an integrated, sustainable, battery-free alternative when realised in a high-performance solution.

Dr Iris Nandhakumar, project Principal Investigator, says: “Imagine a smart shirt that can generate its own power from body heat whilst automatically sensing and maintaining a person’s temperature. Flexible thermoelectric technology can be used to generate electrical energy, sense temperature and provide active cooling vital in applications where individuals are subject to extreme heat stress, such as firefighters.

“TEGs can generate up to several 100 microwatts power from heat radiated by the human body and are safe and long-lasting with zero emissions. Current versions however are plagued by low efficiencies, high manufacturing costs and are fabricated onto rigid substrates which makes them difficult to integrate into many applications.

“In this project we have taken a fresh approach to develop a new breed of TE hybrid materials for flexible TEGs based on low-cost and scalable fabrication methods using low cost and abundant materials.”

The Flexible Hybrid Thermoelectric Materials programme, which has been awarded over £600,000 from the Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council, brings together a range of academic and industry partners with complementary expertise in the electrodeposition of inorganic TE nanostructures with OCP synthesis and printable energy harvesting.

Professor Steve Beeby says: “We are fabricating interconnected 3D nanowire networks of n and p-type inorganic TE with tunable diameters and lengths by template assisted electrodeposition.

“The nanowire assemblies are mechanically stable and have been predicted to exhibit high electrical conductivities with low thermal conductivities. These will be combined with novel flexible p-and n-type OCPs with high electron and hole mobilities to produce flexible and printable TE hybrid materials that will be tested inside a TEG prototype device.”

Thermal energy harvesting is predicted to become a $10 billion global market in 2020, helping exploit the huge potential in areas such as healthcare, fashion and entertainment that experts believe will make the market value for wearable technology reach $51.6 billion in 2022.

Electronics and Computer Science (ECS) at the University of Southampton has been recognised for its commitment to equality and diversity with an Athena SWAN Bronze Award.

The Bronze Award reflects a continuing drive to improve the life and culture of all people in the school.

In the last three years ECS has been working hard to embed the principles of the Athena SWAN Charter across student recruitment and progression, staff appointments and promotion, staff development, and the work environment.

New initiatives have included mentoring and professional development programmes led by Professor Neil White and a monthly Forum for Women called The Campbell Group. Wellbeing Champions Professor mc schraefel and Dr Michael Ng have held numerous workshops including Tai-Chi sessions.

The school’s annual celebrations for the International Day Against Homophobia, Transphobia and Biphobia (IDAHOBIT) were recognised in 2019 as a finalist in the University’s Vice-Chancellor’s Awards. This spring, the event was hosted online and included a movie club, quiz and an art workshop.

Professor Paul Lewin, Head of ECS, says: “We are delighted to receive an Athena SWAN Bronze Award which endorses our school's commitment to diversity and equality. It is very clear that women are under-represented in our sector, so creating an environment in which all staff and students have equal opportunities has been foremost in our decision-making in recent years.

“There is still much to do, and we are now focusing on completing our Action Plan in the coming months to ensure that we turn our Athena SWAN success into lasting change to make ECS fairer and better for all.”

ECS has greatly increased its activities to encourage young women to consider studying computer science and electronics. Its outreach team has made a significant effort to engage with female-only schools and colleges, with Outreach Officer Dr Reena Pau being recognised in each of the University’s Women in Science, Engineering and Technology Plus (WiSET+) and Vice-Chancellor’s Awards schemes.

The University of Southampton is a founding signatory of the Athena SWAN Charter and holds a cross-institution silver-level award. As a signatory, it recognises the specific challenges that affect men and women in academic careers, which leads to inequality at senior levels of higher education. It is committed to addressing these issues, to maximise the potential of all its people.

Demonising the researchers who published the death toll modelling for COVID-19 could suppress openness in academia, warn research software leaders at the universities of Southampton and Edinburgh.

Professor Simon Hettrick, Co-Director of Southampton Software Research Group, and Neil Chue Hong believe that the heavy criticism of Professor Neil Ferguson’s virus transmission modelling could discourage openness of future academic software.

Writing in Research Fortnight, the leaders of the Software Sustainability Institute (SSI) urged society to celebrate researchers who publish their code – rather than attack them.

Professor Ferguson and his team at Imperial College London forecast that 250,000 people could die from COVID-19 in the UK without drastic action, contributing to the government’s decision to impose a long-lasting nationwide lockdown.

The model’s influence has triggered intense scrutiny of its code which the researchers say has put Professor Ferguson’s personal and professional life “through the wringer”.

“The affair has seen legitimate scientific concerns and debate mixed up with efforts to undermine the lockdown and deflect responsibility for policy decisions,” they say. “But most of those criticising Ferguson for sharing his code too late probably don’t realise that sharing software at any time is far from the norm in academia.

“Fundamentally, this is because most researchers don’t have the necessary skills, and those who do lack any incentive to invest the necessary time.

“Even those who publish their software have little reason to clean up and document their code for release, and support it afterwards. Researchers are judged on their publications, not the quality of their code. With no incentives, and amid an already busy schedule of research, teaching and administration, time is too precious to expend on software.”

The SSI Director and Deputy Director underline that openness is vital improve the recognition, reproducibility and reusability of research software, however this will not be incentivised through “toxic” behaviour.

“Criticise software by all means, but bear in mind that its author is likely to be under-resourced and their work with software under-appreciated,” they say. “If we attack researchers who take the plunge and make the effort to release their code, we will only drive fewer to publish their code.

“We must accept that trust in research is inexorably tied to trust in software, and use this to lead the research community to adopt better software engineering practices. A good first step would be to applaud researchers who are brave enough to publish their code.”