Gift of £3m given to Gloucestershire IT security centre

A new IT security education and conference centre, based in Berkeley, Gloucestershire, has been granted a significant investment.

GFirst LEP, the local enterprise partnership in the county, gave the seal of approval for £3m of finance from the Gloucestershire Growth Deal to be invested in the centre.

The Cyber Security Training and Conference Centre is a collaboration between South Gloucestershire and Stroud College (SGSC) and the University of Gloucestershire (UoG), and will develop new IT security facilities at Berkeley Green, as well as in nearby Cheltenham.

Gloucestershire Science and Technology Park, Berkeley, will utilise its services to provide science, technology, engineering and maths (STEM) skills development. It will also offer business training and development in the South West England county.

The site in Cheltenham will be developed into the regional centre for HE courses, as well as research in IT security and computing at undergraduate, PG, and doctorate levels.

Professor Kamal Bechkoum from the University is heading the project. She said:

“The cyber centre and the university will have facilities to get involved in ‘real world’ problem solving and simulations using ‘open’ and digitally sealed ‘dirty’ labs for resilience training and scenario testing with both sites connected via a secure link for collaboration and resource sharing.”

There is a lot of investment being made in the area of cyber security right now, with regards to educating future generations of cyber professionals. The wave of security breaches that have infested companies around the world, the UK included, has been the catalyst for the movement. Individual businesses, by creating cyber security jobs for these professionals, would be helping both themselves and the customers whose data they hold.