Securing Trust, Autonomy, and Resilience in Future Cyber Ecosystems
As part of CRANE’s mission from EPSRC to strengthen the UK’s cyber security research community, the network is funded to support pilot research projects. CRANE is structured into three phases across its five-year term, and this is the main call for proposals in phase one.
Each phase includes a technology trends assessment process, and the report detailing the outcomes of this work is due to be published shortly. That report has informed the topics of the call (listed below), and provides more context and detail on these.
We invite proposals from researchers at EPSRC-eligible organisations for projects in the topics detailed below. Your project must put cyber security at the centre of the research and explain the security threat, vulnerability, assurance challenge, or resilience problem that it will address.
Although speculative and adventurous proposals are welcome, you should consider how to ground the project in a genuine use case or practical need.
What type of projects will we fund?
We expect to fund a portfolio of feasibility studies, pilot projects, policy-focussed research, programme grant definition work, impact acceleration activities, and development work that can shape larger future research programmes or investments. You should set out a focused, deliverable project that can create a credible foundation for future research, translation, or policy engagement.
Your project should fall within the Frascati definition of research and should generally align with EPSRC scope. It is not expected to be at demonstrator phase or to go beyond technology readiness level 4. CRANE funds may only support activities that could be funded through a standard research grant; for example, you cannot use this funding for studentships or student costs that should normally be funded through a training grant.
Call topics
The overall theme of the call is Securing Trust, Autonomy, and Resilience in Future Cyber Ecosystems. Future digital ecosystems will increasingly consist of autonomous and semi-autonomous AI systems operating across both cyber and physical domains.
The following three themes give some examples of relevant research areas, but they are not intended to be exhaustive:
Trust, provenance, and AI integrity
Secure cyber-physical autonomy
AI-augmented decision-making and human–AI collaboration
For full explanations of each topic, please refer to the call document below.
How much funding is available?
CRANE expects to distribute up to approximately £580,000 through this Phase One call. The panel may also recommend that CRANE does not award the full amount if applications do not meet the required quality threshold.
We expect the largest projects to be up to £62,500 full economic cost (FEC) of which CRANE will fund 80% (i.e., up to £50,000 ). Projects may request smaller amounts where this is appropriate. The indicative portfolio below shows the scale of awards CRANE expects to support, but the final distribution will depend on the quality, topic balance, and scale of applications received.
| CRANE funded value (80% of FEC) | Full Economic Cost (FEC) |
|---|---|
| £50,000 | £62,500 |
| £20,000 | £25,000 |
| £10,000 | £12,500 |
Key dates
Your project must run for no more than nine months. You should plan a realistic start date between October and December 2026 and a realistic end date between April and June 2027.
| Date | Activity |
|---|---|
| 1 June 2026 | Advance notice sent to the CRANE community |
| 15 June 2026 | Call issued ahead of the CRANE All-Hands meeting EOI portal open (via CRANE system) |
| By 30 June 2026 | Submission portal open |
| 13 July 2026, 4:00pm UK time | Expression of interest deadline |
| 31 July 2026, 4:00pm UK time | Call closes and review begins |
| First/second week of September 2026 | Prioritisation panel |
| October to December 2026 | Projects begin |
| April to June 2027 | Projects end |
Supporting documents
Please download the following documents to get all details for this funding call before making your submissions.
Ready to submit?
Please use the links below to submit your expression of interest (EOI) first and then your completed application.