Partnerships

We are the Industry Partnership team and we are part of the Research and Innovation Directorate, formed to support and accelerate the University of Surrey’s journey to becoming a great global ranking university.

What we do

Working closely with a range of departments including, Technology Transfer, Business Enterprise Programmes and across Research and Innovation, we engage, nurture and grow existing and new strategic partnerships alliances to:

Drive collaboration with industry
Showcase Surrey’s research expertise
Engage in joint projects to tackle societal issues
Secure capabilities to conduct more and new research (funding, data and skills).

Our external partnerships include working with research labs, corporate commercial companies plus local, regional and central government organisations.

Example initiatives include the development of the world-leading 5G Innovation Centre (5GIC) - establishing a consortium of over 75 corporate and SME partners - and the proposed Digital Space Campus at the Surrey Research Park - co-locating the UK’s digital games and space innovation ecosystems.

Strategic research themes

Our team focuses on the following University strategic research themes:

Research areas

We work closely with key academics and research groups in the below areas.

Bringing together ground-breaking research and innovation in the key technology areas of communications, audio and video processing, artificial intelligence and machine learning, and cyber security, spanning industries including; transport, creative, manufacturing, healthcare, and environmental applications.

5G Innovation Centre

The 5G Innovation Centre brings together leading academics and key industry partners in a shared vision to help define and develop the 5G infrastructure that will underpin the way we communicate, work and live our everyday lives.

Centre for Vision, Speech and Signal Processing (CVSSP)

The Centre for Vision, Speech and Signal Processing is an internationally recognised leader in audio-visual machine perception research. With a diverse community of more than 150 researchers, they are one of the largest audio and vision research groups in the UK.

Research in the Centre has led to award-winning spin-out companies in the biometric, communication, medical and creative industries.

Surrey Centre for Cyber Security

The Surrey Centre for Cyber Security was established by the University of Surrey to consolidate and organise its cyber security activities across the University. They are one of the Academic Centres of Excellence in Cyber Security Research recognised by the UK Government's National Cyber Security Centre in partnership with the Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council.

Artificial Intelligence

AI@Surrey is an interdisciplinary collaboration in artificial intelligence and machine learning across the University of Surrey. Bringing together world-leading expertise in advancing AI algorithms to address practical, real-world applications and the potential impact across a range of domains for the benefit of society.

Combining satellites with 5G, small satellite innovations, space debris prevention and removal, space robotics and AI as part of the Surrey Space Centre, which brings together business and academia.

Four schools, working together with a ‘One Health’ vision to provide interdisciplinary research and teaching in human and animal health with key research themes in:

Chronobiology and sleep

Alleviating disrupted sleep and managing circadian timing for improved health outcomes.

Digital health and data science

Gathering new data insights to advance diagnostics, treatment and care.

Infection and immunity

Understanding microbes, host immunity and preventing the spread of infectious disease.

Healthy ageing and supporting long-term conditions

Defining mechanisms and markers of age-related disease to improve intervention and care.

Nutrition and food security

Determining dietary requirements and sustainable food choices to improve health.

Scholarship of teaching and learning

Advancing pedagogic research to shape individuals and influencing society for the better.

Understanding relationships with the social and physical environment

Understanding how health and development are impacted by an individual’s environment.

The Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences brings together academic researchers and industry partners from a range of disciplines in a learning community that is dedicated to the discovery and enrichment of the arts, humanities and social sciences. It includes nine schools exploring the following research themes:

Living and working in the digital age
Society, economy and sustainability
Cultural practices
Inequalities, governance, wellbeing
Crime, security and justice
Innovative methodologies.

It has over 50 specialist research centres and groups across the following disciplines:

Creative music, digital media arts and film production technologies
Performance in history and contemporary culture
Policy-oriented sociology, criminology
Media and communication
Macroeconomics
Law and philosophy
Politics and international security
Hospitality, tourism and events
Literature, languages, and intercultural communication
Business practice.

Interacting with the best researchers and develop the University’s key strategic relationships with industry and non-academic research institutes/organisations in China, to address issues affecting mankind through the SII-DUFE partnership.