News

The Information Security Group (ISG) at Royal Holloway, University of London has won the award for the Best Cyber Security Education Programme at SC Awards Europe 2017.

The highly respected industry award was presented at the InfoSec 2017 ceremony in London last night (6 June) to Professor Carlos Cid, an ISG academic and Director of the EPSRC Centre for Doctoral Training in Cyber Security at Royal Holloway.

SC awards June 2017

Professor Carlos Cid receiving the award on behalf of ISG at the SC Awards Europe 2017 presentation

The Best Cyber Security Education Programme category includes all cyber security education programmes for any establishments throughout the UK and Europe who offer a qualification based on the quality of instruction, programmes and how well these prepare students for the marketplace. The judging panel of experts is drawn from the senior ranks of the information security profession, selected for their experience and impartiality, representing major European and global brands as well as prestigious government departments.

Principal of Royal Holloway, Professor Paul Layzell said,

“Many congratulations to all our ISG colleagues on this outstanding success. The award is a richly deserved tribute to the first class education provided by the ISG, recognising their excellence, innovation and best practice in the Cyber Security sector.”

Professor Keith Mayes, Director of the ISG and Head of the School of Mathematics and Information Security at Royal Holloway said,

“I am absolutely delighted that the ISG’s pioneering efforts in Information/cyber security education have been recognised by this prestigious award. It is particularly gratifying that we were judged by experts from industry and government as our MSc was inspired by their needs more than 25 years ago! The continued success of our educational courses is in part due to their relevance, which leads to very high employability of our graduates, but also from research-inspired teaching by world class experts.”

The profile and impact of cyber security has increased exponentially in global society since the ISG launched its flagship MSc Information Security degree programme in 1992, the first programme of its kind in the world. Over 4,000 students from more than 100 countries have graduated since then.

A key strength of the MSc Information Security degree is its focus on education for the needs of government and industry. This success was recognised in 2014 when Royal Holloway became one of only four UK universities to gain GCHQ certification for their Cyber Security Masters programmes.

The MSc programme develops a comprehensive all-round appreciation of information security, backed up in all areas by the strength and breadth of expertise of the ISG's network of academics and security professionals. Currently the ISG supervises over 90 PhD students and has more than 450 MSc students studying on campus and Distance Learning programmes.

Prospective students can find out more about the studying options available on the Information Security Group website:

ISG is receiving applications for the 2017/18 CDT cohort, and have a number of fully-funded studentships to award to qualified and eligible candidates, to start their PhD studies in September 2017.

Notes

Since its foundation in 1990, the ISG has been a world renowned centre of excellence in information/cyber security research, education and expert advice. It is a GCHQ/EPSRC Centre of Excellence for research (ACE-CSR), it has GCHQ certified education, and hosts one of only two UK Cyber Security Centres for Doctoral Training (CDT), as well as the Smart Card & IoT Security Centre and Systems Security Research Lab. ISG comprises: