University of Bristol (Smart Internet Lab) and Digital Catapult are proud to support the Industrial Strategy’s focus on Advanced Connectivity Technologies as the backbone of the UK’s critical national infrastructure, supporting advancements in UK digital transformation and use of data driven and open future networks to shape the future of digital infrastructure. 

To truly unlock their potential, we believe in the power of national open experimental platforms in enabling cutting-edge research, accelerating innovation, and turning ideas into real-world impact. This is key to achieving the UK’s strategic goals and driving long term economic growth. 

The University of Bristol and Digital Catapult are teaming up to form a strategic partnership, leveraging both of their national experimentation and testing platforms to deliver complementary research and innovation services for the UK’s digital infrastructure sector.  

JOINER, led by University of Bristol, brings together universities, research labs, and industry leaders in a unique national-scale  experimentation-as-a-service model – designed for co-creation and rapid innovation of advanced connectivity solutions. Bringing together the knowledge and research capabilities of 13 world-leading universities and labs, JOINER offers a combination of test environments, tools and infrastructure, combined with an emphasis on collaboration, knowledge sharing and dissemination.

SONIC Labs, led by Digital Catapult in partnership with Ofcom, offers cutting-edge lab-to-field open networking infrastructure – accelerating the development and deployment of multi-vendor Open RAN and open networking systems through real-world interoperability testing and expert support. To date, SONIC has worked with 23 participating companies from 11 countries worldwide to test 71 products in more than 50 end-to-end Open RAN deployable systems.

These powerful national experimentation platforms have been made possible thanks to the continued strategic support of the Department for Science, Innovation and Technology (DSIT)  and the Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council (EPSRC) over several years. 

By bringing these cutting-edge and complementary experimentation platforms together, we’re empowering the UK’s advanced connectivity community – across industry and academia – with the tools, expertise, and innovation support needed to drive the future of digital infrastructure. 

Together, we’re creating a unique national resource for the UK’s Advanced Connectivity Technologies.