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A strong start to 2025
From major infrastructure milestones to new partnerships and national events, the first half of 2025 has seen JOINER grow from an ambitious work-in-progress into a powerful, operational reality. Connecting researchers, industry, and government across the UK and beyond in the pursuit of next-generation telecoms innovation.
We began the year by announcing our work with Weaver Labs, incorporating their CellStack platform and hypervisor-as-a-service (HaaS) model into JOINER. This collaboration set the tone for a year defined by practical integration, flexible experimentation and cross-sector partnerships.
February brought even more momentum. Digital Catapult became one of the first sites to connect to the JOINER infrastructure, marking a key step in scaling the platform’s reach. Around the same time, we went live with our Oxford node, expanding the network and unlocking new opportunities for researchers.
Collaboration at scale
March was a standout month for JOINER. We kicked things off by exhibiting at MWC Barcelona as part of the UK Innovation Pavilion, showcasing JOINER’s role in enabling next-generation telecoms research and innovation.
The highlight of the month, however, was the Connected Futures Festival in Bristol, with livestreamed satellite events in Belfast, London, and Cambridge. The day brought together over 1,000 participants, including 100 school children and 300 conference delegates, alongside leading voices in telecoms, policy, and innovation. It was a day of collaboration, live demos, and bold ideas, exploring everything from spectrum innovation to intelligent networks. If you missed it, you can read the full highlights here.
The sense of momentum continued into May, when researchers from Trinity College Dublin and Tyndall National Institute hosted a landmark event celebrating the launch of the first JOINER node outside the UK. This development connected Irish testbeds into JOINER’s federated infrastructure, creating a powerful new route for cross-border collaboration in telecoms. That same month, we were also proud to sponsor and exhibit at IEEE DySPAN 2025, where we highlighted JOINER’s commitment to spectrum innovation and experimentation at scale with the JOINER National Spectrum Facility.
Leadership and launch
In June, we were proud to announce the appointment of Rosalind Singleton as Chair of the JOINER Board. With her background across UK Broadband, Vodafone and Spring Fibre, and her leadership in both public and private telecoms bodies, Ros brings a depth of expertise that will be invaluable as JOINER enters its next phase.
We also officially launched the JOINER platform to industry at a well-attended event in Bristol, welcoming partners from across the UK. It offered a chance to see JOINER in action and explore how the platform supports experimentation, collaboration and commercialisation across future networks. You can read the highlights and summary of the day in our event blog here.
Growing the team
As JOINER grows, so does our team. This summer, we announced several exciting new roles across software, networks, infrastructure, and support. We’re continuing to build the national platform for 6G experimentation and we’re hiring the brightest minds to help us do it.
Follow us on LinkedIn to keep up to date with our current open roles.
Looking ahead
JOINER was always intended to be more than just infrastructure. It is about building a community of researchers, developers, technologists and innovators who are shaping the networks of the future.
Thanks to the contributions and energy of our partners, we are doing just that.
As we pause before a busy autumn, we want to say a huge thanks to everyone who has supported the journey so far. We’re proud of what we’ve achieved and even more excited for what’s to come.
We’ll be back in September refreshed and with more opportunities to connect, collaborate and innovate.
Until then, enjoy the summer break!
The JOINER Team