The Research Institute in Automated Program Analysis and Verification at Imperial (2014-2017) was the UK’s second Academic Research Institute in cyber security, funded as part of the UK’s national cyber security programme.
In 2017, the Institute was succeeded by the Research Institute on Verified Trustworthy Software Systems (VeTSS).
Over three years, RIAPAV supported the work of world leading researchers in the UK who were working in fields such as mathematical logic, programming languages, and program analysis and verification. The institute was set up as a collaboration between six universities:
- University of Edinburgh
- Imperial College London
- University of Kent
- The University of Manchester
- Queen Mary University of London
- University College London
Funded by a £4.5 million grant, the Institute was established by GCHQ in partnership with the Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council (EPSRC) through the Research Councils UK (RCUK) Global Uncertainties Programme and the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills (BIS).
The institute was set up to deal with the clear and pressing need to improve cyber security by providing greater understanding, proving correctness of programs and identifying potential weaknesses of our software. Modern society is critically dependent on computer software. However, we cannot yet guarantee what software does. Our understanding has not kept pace with its complexity.
Mathematical analysis and verification techniques were just beginning to reach industrial scale, achieving guarantees of correctness, safety and security.
