Open Networks R&D Fund

The government is making a £250m investment through the Open Networks R&D Fund; this represents a step-forward in its endeavour for the UK to take a leading role in early stage research and guide the development of technology standards, alongside key industry and international partners.

The fund will help to:

• evolve the UK ecosystem (through the development of the UK Telecoms Innovation Network, and coordinating and shaping technical standards);
• accelerate maturity (through FRANC and the Future Open Networks (FON) Research Challenge);
• facilitate international research and development (for instance the UK/Republic of Korea Open RAN R&D collaboration);
• develop facilities and demonstration capabilities (SONIC Labs and UK Telecoms Lab);
• drive adoption (for instance NeutrORAN).

UK Open Networks R&D Fund Prospectus

The UK government wants the entire country to benefit from the social and economic advantages that digital infrastructure enables. There is a recognition that the future telecoms landscape will be broad and varied, encompassing a range of emerging technologies including 6th generation wireless (6G), quantum communication and quantum internet, next generation space-based communications, cloud communications and associated infrastructure, edge computing, and hardware advances such as next generation fibre optics. Government has stated a strong intention for the UK to be at the forefront of these emerging trends.

It is with this in mind that they have designed the investment and planned activities to work towards safeguarding the security, resilience, competition and innovation benefits of diverse telecoms supply chains, without compromising on the performance, features or efficiency.

In July 2022, the government published a Prospectus that outlines how the fund will accelerate the pace of UK telecoms innovation. 

You can read the prospectus in full here.