Scotland’s new cybersecurity development hub opens at Abertay University
Scotland’s new home for cybersecurity research, innovation, and industry growth, Abertay cyberQuarter, has officially opened at Abertay University. The £18 million hub in Abertay University’s Annie Lamont Building has been jointly funded by the University and the UK Government (£5.7 million) and Scottish Government (£6 million) through the Tay Cities Region Deal, providing a new model for supporting the rapidly growing cyber sector in a facility that’s the first of its kind in the country.
In addition to a physical space for collaboration and experimentation between industry and academia, the Abertay cyberQuarter has a secure cloud-computing infrastructure that will be used for specialist online teaching and provision of R&D and knowledge exchange activities.
Operating over four floors, the centre provides a flexible range of open plan spaces for group working, private office accommodation for use by established businesses or new start-up companies, seminar rooms for training and CPD delivery, an events space, an outdoor terrace and a cinema/lecture theatre.
Creating new solutions to local, national and international cybersecurity challenges will be among the goals of Abertay cyberQuarter, which also aims to bring inclusive economic growth to the area by supporting the expansion of existing companies and helping new ones to succeed.
Abertay University is a UK leader in cybersecurity education and is the only institution in Scotland to have received gold-level recognition as an Academic Centre for Excellence in Cyber Security Education from the National Cyber Security Centre (part of GCHQ).
Students from the University’s Ethical Hacking, Computing and Cybersecurity programmes will have first-hand access to Abertay cyberQuarter, learning directly from industry professionals while also bringing fresh thinking and new approaches to joint projects.
The cybersecurity arm of NHS NSS (National Services Scotland) has already announced it will be locating at Abertay cyberQuarter, bringing an initial 30 jobs to Dundee, and further partnership announcements are due in the coming weeks.
As well as the core funding through the Tay Cities Region Deal, the project has been supported with funding from Scottish Enterprise under the Scottish Government’s Strategic Framework for a Cyber Resilient Scotland.
Construction was managed by SCAPE, with McLaughlin & Harvey acting as principal contractors and the designs created by Dundee-based Wellwood Leslie Architects.
