Case studies

SPRITE+ was launched with a vision to deliver a step change in engagement between people involved in research, practice, and policy relevant to trust, identity, privacy, and security (TIPS) with a focus on digital contexts. Collectively, we will identify and address key research challenges.

SPRITE+ has three goals:

• Goal 1: Build and develop the research community. SPRITE+ will expand the academic TIPS research community beyond its current disciplinary boundaries, bringing in researchers in humanities, behavioural and social sciences, and from other areas of ‘security science’. Its access fund and support for early career researchers fosters inclusive participation. SPRITE+ operates as a ‘network of networks’, developing productive and mutually supportive relationships with cognate networks and organisations.
• Goal 2: Engage stakeholder communities. SPRITE+ leads, develops, and supports a vibrant collaborative community of industry, university, government, law enforcement, and third sector partners. SPRITE+ actively engages with the existing TIPS community to identify and remove obstacles to engagement to bring new stakeholders on board.
• Goal 3: Draw up roadmaps for research. SPRITE+ activities will shape the direction of research and investment within and beyond its funding period. Through consultation with academic and non-academic partners, SPRITE+ identifies broad Challenge Themes (CTs) related to current and future TIPS-related problems. We will fund activities that explore new ideas related to the CTs, and create new collaborations between academic disciplines, and between academic and non-academic partners. The outputs will be research roadmaps to address these CTs, articulating the current ‘state of the art’ and highlighting priority gaps in knowledge.

Following its initial success SPRITE received a second tranche of funding to deliver SPRITE+ 2.0 which is continuing to grow the Membership, expand the breadth and depth of our innovation, and deepen impact through proactive engagement.

SPRITE+2 has the following objectives:

1. Expand our TIPS network, harnessing the expertise and collaborative potential of national and international TIPS communities.
2. Identify and prioritise future TIPS research challenges.
3. Explore and develop the priority research areas to enhance our collective understanding of future global TIPS challenges.
4. Stimulate innovative research through sandpits, industry-led calls, and horizon scanning.
5. Deepen engagement with TIPS research end users across sectors to accelerate knowledge exchange.
6. Understand, inform, and influence policy making and practice at regional, national, and international levels.

These are delivered through four interconnected work packages (WPs) and two cross-cutting activities (CCAs).

Project partners include:

• Arm;
• Alan Turing Institute;
• Bruntwood;
• BT, Cybsafe;
• CSA National Security;
• ETRI;
• GCHQ;
• GMCA;
• HC2;
• Improbable;
• Inogesis;
• NCSC;
• N8 PRP;
• Nasdaq;
• NATO;
• ODI;
• Yoti;
• Wilton park;
• Rebellion Defense;
• SRI;
• Wavestone.

More information can be found on the Sprite+ website: SpriteHub – Security, Privacy, Identity, Trust in the Digital Economy

Launched in September 2018, the Law and Technology Initiative at The University of Manchester serves as a dynamic platform between industry stakeholders, regulatory communities and academics within the Alliance Manchester Business School (AMBS), Department of Computer Science and the Law School.

The Initiative provides a trusted space in which participating stakeholders and University experts can examine some of the more challenging questions that are arising for the legal sector due to the emergence of new technologies.

The Initiative brings together practice and research to identify dangers and facilitate opportunities in future policy directions at the interface of law and technology, developing the next-generation workforce through an innovative curriculum and skills training.

Email: law-tech@manchester.ac.uk

Our primary focus is on analysing and understanding criminal activity, misconduct and antisocial behaviour that takes place online or is facilitated by the internet or digital systems and environments.

Research projects:

• The nature, organisation and governance of deviant activities that negatively affect online sports betting markets (A scoping review of the academic, policy and industry literature on the nature, organisation and governance of illicit activities in gambling markets, domestically in the UK and globally).
• CyberUp – analysing the growth in cybercrime during COVID-19 and post-pandemic trends (The disruption generated by COVID-19 is not limited to those who suffer the disease, lockdown and social distancing measures have had unintended impacts on complex social domains, including cybercrime and fraud. This project explores changes in rates of cyber-dependent and cyber-enabled crime during and after the pandemic).
• Re-counting crime: new methods to improve the accuracy of estimates of crime (Aims to understand the nature of the gaps in crime data coverage, explore the implications of relying on crime estimates prone to measurement error, develop adjustment methods and estimate new 'corrected' crime counts at the local area level).

• Who we are working with: Man City
• Researcher: Dr. Elisa Bellotti

Dr Elisa Bellotti studies social networks and how they shape and are shaped by our social environment. Topics commonly investigated are gender, science, criminal networks, personal relationships, and mixed methods. By looking at social networks, whom we interact with and how relationships influence us, we can better understand how societies work and cultures emerge.

Pep Guardiola is the classic example of the broker who liaises across different cultures, transmits them through social groups, adapts them to different environments, and in doing so produces innovations. Looking at his career through the lenses of social networks provides a clear example of how the social mechanisms we theorize in social network analysis apply in real life to explain how cultures and movements emerge.

How Guardiola Changed the English Game | THE PEP EFFECT - YouTube