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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.
An international 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.
We experiment.
JOINER is an international-scale open experimental platform for future networks research, development, and innovation, born out of the UK.
A scientific instrument in its own right, JOINER opens up new technological avenues and applications that haven’t been considered before. It is neutral, heterogeneous and agile. It offers robust capabilities in hybrid cloud, AI-ready edge computing, spectrum experimentation, NTN emulators and secure networking.
Our platform provides the real-life conditions needed for world-leading research conducted at a scale far beyond what is possible in a single lab. This is a new era for telecoms R&D.
An experimentation platform for future connectivity
Collaboration is in our DNA
We collaborate.
We exist to serve industry, academia, and government: supporting collaboration across start-ups, spin-outs, quangos, big corporations, and policymakers.
JOINER brings together the cutting-edge capabilities of 15+ world-leading universities and labs in one vibrant ecosystem, representing expertise from across the UK and beyond.
Beyond connecting technical capabilities and research focuses, the JOINER platform actively fosters a collaboration of perspectives. Social, cultural experiences that inform alongside scientific, technical interactions.
The power of JOINER lies in the connections made between its users, enabling them to push boundaries together and achieve more than they could alone.
We innovate.
JOINER accelerates the process of validation and co-creation of 6G technologies and applications, coordinating and federating new future networks testbed initiatives for research, innovation and adoption trials.
We are closing the gap between the lab and the market, exploiting research, testing at scale in real-world conditions, working with end users and advancing commercialisation.
JOINER is where innovators come to realise their boldest ideas.
Combining cutting edge capabilities
Joining the dots.
JOINER is led by the University of Bristol, alongside three core partners who represent each of the Future Telecoms Hubs — CHEDDAR, HASC, and TITAN.
In partnership, JOINER connects 15+ research labs across the UK and beyond, each bringing their own unique specialisations and capabilities. By creating a network of ‘nodes’ that draws together research leaders and test networks internationally, JOINER is facilitating unprecedented collaboration, and access to expertise, at scale.
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.
A world top 100 university, the University of Glasgow is a major research-led university and, alongside the Scotland 5G Centre, is Scotland’s contributor to the JOINER project.
The DSP Centre in Bangor University was established in September 2019 to develop cutting-edge digital signal processing solutions for 5G and beyond. The Centre has dedicated teams conducting activities in research, commercialisation and skill training. In addition, the Centre also has three unique research labs equipped with state-of-the-art equipment worth of £5.5, and a strong industrial partner base consisting of 35 partners world-wide covering the whole ICT value chain. The Centre is conducting pioneering telecommunication research at device, transmission system and network architecture levels, with particular attention focussed on physical-layer network security, joint communications and sensing, as well as seamlessly converged fibre-mmW-FSO networks.
CONNECT Research Ireland Centre for Future Networks headquartered at Trinity College Dublin is advancing the capabilities of OpenIreland, Ireland’s national open networking testbed for 6G and beyond. CONNECT’s focus lies in seamlessly integrating optical and wireless network technologies to enable end-to-end, low-latency, resilient and high-throughput connectivity.
As part of this effort, OpenIreland provides a cutting-edge experimentation platform for the development and validation of AI-driven, intelligent network control frameworks, leveraging digital twin models to simulate, predict, and optimise network behaviour in real time. The platform also supports research into joint sensing and communication capabilities, enabling the fusion of environmental awareness with high-speed connectivity, a critical enabler for next-generation applications such as autonomous systems, smart cities, and immersive XR.
Through this work, CONNECT reinforces Ireland’s leadership in developing the resilient and intelligent communications infrastructure of the future.
Edinburgh’s Networked Systems Group has long studied challenges and opportunities in disaggregated, software-centric 5G and beyond mobile networks, including Open RAN. Recently, their focus has expanded to AI’s impact on RAN, edge AI infrastructure, and applications, with strong ties to private 5G.
This terminal-in-a-van is a mobile node, packed with connectivity kit, including a mobile satellite link with Starlink roaming, 5G Open RAN access, and Wi-Fi 7.
The JOINER Brain.
JOINER’s nerve centre.
The JOINER Brain is the single point of managing and controlling the entire JOINER platform. It eliminates the need to configure every new test environment from scratch, meaning users can move more quickly from closed environments to commercial settings.
This secure, simplified access helps us meet our ambition to offer a real-world test environment, accelerate prototyping, and close the gap between lab trials and successful deployments.
Our facilities.
Centres of excellence.
JOINER is an international-scale open experimental platform for future networks research, development, and innovation born out of the UK. The platform boasts three core virtual facilities.
National Spectrum Facility.
Find out moreNon-Terrestrial-Network Emulation Facility.
Find out moreAI Acceleration Facility.
Find out moreWhat you can use JOINER for.
JOINER provides a common infrastructure and testing facility that is open for collaboration to all.
This is where universities, large corporates, spin-outs and start-ups, SMEs, and government bodies come to experiment, collaborate, and innovate.
The platform’s services continue to evolve. And with each new node that’s connected, more possibilities are 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.
JOINER delivers expandable cloud-native capabilities that rival commercial hyperscale offerings. Users can launch services in minutes, without needing to purchase additional hardware, and replicate live production environments.
All of which facilitates greater alignment between research and real-world needs —breaking down the traditional siloes between industry and academia, and accelerating the progress of new ideas into the UK telecoms supply chain.
In the required conditions.
JOINER offers fully isolated project environments with central access control and monitoring. The platform’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.
Powered by enterprise-grade solutions from Dell, VMware, AWS, Juniper, and Fortinet, JOINER users can set up and run end-to-end experiments within hours — not weeks or months. And scalable storage and advanced, AI-driven monitoring and analytics deliver impactful results quicker than ever.
Smoothing the path to the standards ecosystem.
Our platform provides organisations of all sizes with a means of gathering critical, scaled experimentation data in both controlled and live environments that can be used to demonstrate the efficacy and impact of IP in real-life representative scenarios.
JOINER’s spectrum capability for example, is unmatched in the UK testbed ecosystem, and helps to smooth the path to engaging with the standards ecosystem.
And plug emerging gaps.
JOINER’s real-world testing environment provides industry employees, researchers, and undergraduates alike with the means to develop in-demand specialist scale system skills.
The platform’s heterogeneous makeup allows for testing across different telecoms systems, meaning that emerging skills gaps can be first identified and then effectively plugged.