Pre-announcement: Open-source semiconductor security platform development

Upcoming UKRI funding opportunity · Grant. Closing date to be confirmed. Total fund £2.5 million. Opportunity page: https://www.ukri.org/opportunity/open-source-semiconductor-security-platform-development/

Apply for funding to support the development of an open-source hardware security research platform to strengthen the UK’s capability to design, test and assure secure hardware.

You must be based at a UK research organisation eligible for EPSRC funding.

Projects will be funded for 12 months. The full economic cost (FEC) of your project can be up to £300,000. EPSRC will fund 80% of the FEC, up to £240,000.

This is a pre-announcement and the information may change. The funding opportunity is scheduled to open in October 2026. More information will be available on this page then.

What we're looking for Aim

This funding opportunity will fund a set of one-year awards to support the development of a BIST-funded open-source hardware security research platform.

Context

The Department for Business, Innovation, Science and Trade (BIST) is funding work to develop an industry-standard, open-source hardware security research platform to strengthen the UK’s capability to design, test and assure secure hardware, and to support commercial uptake.

The platform would provide a shared environment bringing together academic research and industry challenges, enabling researchers to work on the problems companies face in practice and supporting clearer pathways into commercial use.

The platform itself will be designed to be flexible and easily adapted to enable research teams to prototype new innovations.

The shared platform will provide:

- resources, training, and education in hardware security

- improved hardware security best practices and reduced barriers to their adoption

- novel academic research outputs spanning semiconductor security vulnerabilities, attacks, mitigations, and security-aware electronic design automation (EDA) tools

- strengthened translation of…