The University of Central Lancashire (UCLan) recently hosted a gathering of SMEs, large employers, government agencies, academics, and local policymakers, who are involved in accelerating growth within the county’s cybersecurity and defence sectors.
Part of a series of business engagement workshops delivered by Lancashire County Council (LCC) in partnership with the innovation company Plexal, the event was co-produced by the Lancashire Cyber Good Practice Network (LCGPN).
Based at UCLan’s Centre for SME and Enterprise Development, and led by UCLan’s Helen Hesketh-Roberts, the LCGPN is a peer-to-peer network of Lancashire cybersecurity professionals, researchers, and organisations, who share best practice to enhance the county’s cyber skills base and capabilities.
The programme of presentations and discussion panels featured a wide range of experts working across the national and regional security and defence agenda. These included representatives from the National Cyber Force (NCF), Professor Andy Schofield – Chair of the recently launched North West Regional Defence and Security Cluster – and spokespeople from two Ministry of Defence (MOD)-backed initiatives, the Defence and Security Accelerator (DASA) and Ploughshare.
Tracey Woolley, a director from Accenture’s specialist cyber and technology consultancy, 6point6, Jonny Curtis, ecosystem specialist from Innovate UK Business Growth, and Josh Walter from cybersecurity venture capitalists, Osney Capital, also took part, as did Plexal’s senior innovation lead, Ruby Motabhoy.
Lancashire’s potential as fast-growth hotbed of cyber and defence innovation, R&D and economic growth was a constant theme throughout the proceedings.
Andy Walker, Lancashire County Council’s head of business growth and innovation, Keith Miller, UCLan’s professor of digital innovation, and Plexal’s senior clusters consultant Russell Gundry, all emphasised Lancashire’s significant opportunity to maximise its strengths in both digital and physical security disciplines.
This was reinforced by a fireside chat featuring Matt Dickinson and Victoria Millsop from UCLan’s exoskeleton research group, Viking Exos – which has developed exoskeleton technology for the defence sector – who were joined by Duncan Sime, DASA’s north west programme lead.
Hosted by Plexal consultant Charlotte West, this session focused on how tech SMEs in Lancashire can look to secure research funding – and other support – to access opportunities from the likes of the NCF and MOD, and the wider security and defence supply chain.
The UCLan event was further used to share with delegate more details of Lancashire’s new £12m innovation and technology facility at Samlesbury, the security and defence focus set to be embedded into LCC’s new Economic Growth Plan, and the potential growth set to be unlocked by National Cyber Force moving to Lancashire.
The county’s role at the heart of the evolving North West Cyber Corridor, which will strengthen links between Lancaster University, UCLan, the NCF, and GCHQ’s Manchester hub, was also highlighted.
ENDS
