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What is JOINER?
JOINER stands for Joint Open Infrastructure for Networks Research. It is a university-led national experimentation platform created to accelerate future communications and networks research, exploitation and adoption.
It brings together the knowledge and research capabilities of 11 world-leading universities and labs from across the UK to offer a combination of test environments, tools and infrastructure, combined with an emphasis on knowledge sharing, dissemination and skills development.
It forms part of the UK Federated Telecoms Hubs, supporting the UK’s strategy for future telecoms through the provision of joined up infrastructure.
Why does JOINER exist?
JOINER provides a platform for proof-of-concept demonstration and early commercialisation, empowering users to gather experimental evidence, advance research translation, generate valuable IP, test and validate services in real-world representative conditions, and develop in-demand specialist skills.
We are breaking down barriers between industry and academia, providing real-world research outcomes to help guide government decision-making, and offering investors a clear technology roadmap.
Who can use JOINER?
JOINER is open to all, serving academia, entrepreneurs, government and enterprise.
Although developed and based in the UK, JOINER is available to the broader international telecoms ecosystem, with opportunities for overseas organisations and academics to engage with the very best of what the UK has to offer, at scale and across all regions.
We’re fully funded by DSIT, the UK Department for Science, Innovation and Technology, via EPSRC, so there is no cost to use our platform. Whether you’re a telecoms veteran or just embarking on your telecoms adventure, all are welcome here.
How can I use JOINER?
The JOINER platform exists to test new solutions in a real-world representative environment, to quickly identify pros, cons, and scale potential, to accelerate the translation of cutting edge research to meet real-world needs, and to accelerate the progress of new ideas into the UK supply chain.
Our platform’s open, heterogeneous design means that its potential uses are both broad and specific — whether that be an academic researcher testing a new hypothesis at scale, a large corporate trialling how future solutions will run on a legacy system, or a start-up seeking to compile lab evidence to back up their pitches.
Use cases for our platform are continuously evolving. And with the more nodes we connect, and the more people who use the platform, the greater the benefits that will be realised.
Who is behind JOINER?
JOINER is led by the University of Bristol alongside three core partners — Imperial College London, University of Cambridge, and the University of Oxford — who represent each of the Future Telecoms Hubs and together create the Federated Telecom Hubs.
Our platform brings together these partners plus seven further nodes from across the UK, representing the very best of telecoms R&D in England, Scotland and Northern Ireland.
A national experimentation platform.
Where academic excellence meets real-world need.
Where next gen network research becomes reality.
Where all are welcome.
Where the future of communications already exists.
An experimentation platform for future connectivity.
The power of JOINER lies in the connections made between its users, enabling them to work together and achieve more than they could alone.
Our platform provides the real-life conditions needed for everything from experimental research to exploitation, skills development and adoption testing.
It accelerates the process of validation and co-creation of 6G technologies and applications — by coordinating and federating new future networks testbed initiatives for research, innovation and adoption trials.
Open infrastructure
University led
Combining cutting edge capabilities.
JOINER is a scientific instrument in its own right, opening up new technological avenues and applications that haven’t been considered before.
It is neutral, heterogeneous and agile. It is open, experimental, and brings together the cutting-edge capabilities of 11 world-leading universities and labs in one vibrant ecosystem, representing expertise from across the UK.
It is open to all.
Collaboration is in our DNA.
We exist to serve academia, industry, and government: supporting collaboration with start-ups, spin-outs, quangos, big corporations, and policymakers alike.
Our platform underpins the UK Federated Telecoms Hubs. We are funded by the UK Department for Science, Innovation and Technology (DSIT) via the Engineering & Physical Sciences Research Council (EPSRC) Technology Missions Fund, and work to support the UK’s strategy for future telecoms through the provision of joined up infrastructure.
Collaborative at the core
Joining the dots.
Our project is led by the University of Bristol, alongside three core partners who represent each of the Future Telecoms Hubs — CHEDDAR, HASC, and TITAN. Along with JOINER, these three projects create the Federated Telecoms Hubs.
JOINER connects the research labs of each of these partners, and extends to include seven other centres of excellence — or nodes. Drawing together research leaders and test networks from across the UK, each bringing their own unique specialisations and capabilities.
Heading up the HASC Future Telecoms Hub, the team at the University of Oxford is focused on combining wired and wireless internet technologies to achieve end-to-end connectivity. For our experimentation platform, this will involve modelling the capabilities of different wired and wireless techniques, investigating efficient interfaces and physical architectures, and analysing new fibres and their capabilities.
The Centre for Wireless Innovation (CWI), Queen’s University Belfast, is the UK’s largest research, development and exploitation base in physical layer wireless, and one of the strongest in Europe.
Imperial College London leads the CHEDDAR Future Telecoms Hub and brings academic excellence and world-leading research in TK to our project.
The Imperial team is investigating emerging computation and critical infrastructures with a cross-sector focus on end-users. This will involve building a unified research ecosystem focused on breaking new ground in the field of 6G and interconnected intelligence.
The University of Leeds has a longstanding international reputation for: communications, signal processing, control systems and instrumentation. Over the last decade, there has been significant expansion into optical communications and networking, engaging with all major telecommunication companies.
The University of Southampton researches and develops novel techniques to process and transmit optical signals and discovered the erbium doped fibre amplifier in the 1980s, which eliminates fibre loss as an obstacle to signal transmission. Today, Southampton introduces new technologies that unleash the potential of optics and photonics and create an internet infrastructure that is fit for the future.
Our lead partner, the University of Bristol has a well-earned reputation for telecoms innovation, operating at the cutting edge of global research in autonomous networks, data science, machine learning and AI, mobile edge computing, and convergence.
As well as contributing its own expertise in these fields, the team will draw together the offerings of the three Future Telecoms Hubs with seven other research labs and test networks across the UK to bring our vision to fruition.
The team at Cambridge leads the TITAN Future Telecoms Hub, which aims to develop a seamless, open, integrated Network of Networks that will serve as a foundational blueprint for the evolution of 6G networks and beyond — a core component of our experimentationplatform.
Cranfield University is a QS top 30 university in aerospace and mechanical engineering, focused on advancing research in how wireless technologies can improve transportation, autonomy, and defence.
Consistently ranked as a top ten university in the world, UCL is number two in the UK for research power and is a modern, outward-looking institution, committed to engaging with the major issues of our times.
Digital Catapult is a deep tech innovation organisation helping businesses grow by applying deep tech and partnering with government, industry and academia to find solutions that benefit the UK.
JOINER is also uniquely contributing to the UK’s place-based agenda.
By actively engaging with digital innovation clusters across the UK, we’re enhancing the research and innovation landscape and building on the specific needs and strengths of specific regions.
Join in
JOINER provides a common infrastructure and testing facility that is open for collaboration to all: universities, large corporates, spin-outs and start-ups, SMEs, and government bodies.
Use cases for our platform are continuously evolving. And with the more nodes we connect, and the more people who use the platform, the greater the benefits that will be realised.
Studies at the bleeding edge.
JOINER supports pioneering investigation with the most advanced research platform available to UK academics — putting new studies on a fast track to world-leading discoveries, and accelerating the UK’s trajectory to 6G and beyond.
From research to the real world.
With collaboration, knowledge sharing, and access to a wide range of facilities and specialisations at its heart, our platform enables academics to accelerate their research from the theoretical to the real-world — and to IP generation.
Cut through the emerging tech hype.
Our platform can be used to test new solutions in a real-world representative environment, to quickly identify pros, cons, and scale potential. These proof points will help to guide government decision-making, shape future policy and interventions, and provide investors with a clear roadmap.
Connecting industry and academia.
The gap between research outcomes and going to market is a perilous one. Navigating this valley is recognised as particularly challenging within the telecoms sector.
By breaking down the traditional silos between industry and academia, our platform ensures greater alignment between research and real-world needs — accelerating the progress of new ideas into the UK supply chain.
In the required conditions.
JOINER’s unique scale and heterogeneous make-up means industry-relevant products and services can be put through their paces in an environment that’s representative of the real world.
Whether for a large corporate testing how new solutions run across legacy systems, an SME compiling lab evidence to bolster pitches to customers, or researchers running tests at the bleeding edge, the our platform provides the conditions required.
Smoothing the path to the standards ecosystem.
By providing organisations of all sizes with a means of gathering critical, scaled experimentation data that can be used to demonstrate the efficacy and impact of IP in real-life representative scenarios, our platform smooths the path to engaging with the standards ecosystem.
And plugging the gaps.
JOINER’s real-world testing environment provides undergraduates, researchers and industry employees alike with the means to develop in-demand specialist scale system skills.
The platform’s heterogenous makeup allows for testing across different telecoms systems, meaning that emerging skills gaps can be first identified and then effectively plugged.