2025 Annual Conference

The UK Research Institute in Secure Hardware and Embedded Systems (RISE) will be holding their next Annual Conference at Prince Philip House, at the Royal Academy of Engineering, London on 11th September 2025. 

The annual conference aims to bring together the UK hardware security community from both academia and industry, and will consist of a mix of technical presentations from invited speakers, updates from RISE research projects, and provides an opportunity for students and early career researchers to showcase their work via poster and demo sessions. During the breaks there will be ample opportunity for networking and exploring potential collaborations.

Registration

Click here to register now and secure your place!

PhD & Researcher Bursaries

Please note that a limited number of travel bursaries are available for UK-based PhD students and post-doctoral researchers, on a first come first serve basis. Requests for bursaries should be sent to info@ukrise.org after registering above.

Event Location

The event will be held at Prince Philip House, home of the Royal Academy of Engineering, located at 3 Carlton House Terrace, London SW1Y 5DG.

Prince Philip House at The Royal Academy of Engineering, Carlton House Terrace, London

Conference Chair


Prof Máire O’Neill, FREng
Regius Professor in Electronics and Computer Engineering, Director of the Research Institute in Secure Hardware & Embedded Systems (RISE), Queens University Belfast.

Agenda

RISE Annual Conference, 11th September 2025, Prince Philip House, London.
09:00 – 09:30Registration & Tea/Coffee/Refreshments
09:30 – 09:40Opening Remarks & Welcome, Prof Máire O’Neill
09:40 – 10:40Keynote Session: “Breaking Confidentiality and Integrity Through the Microarchitecture and Finding Free Lunch Down There” Prof Daniel Gruss, Graz University of Technology.
10:40 – 11:00Break
11:00 – 11:30RISE Project Updates Session:
Dr Ahmad Atamli, University of Southampton
11:30 – 12:00Dr Lucas Cordeiro, University of Manchester
12:00 – 12:30Professor David Oswald, University of Birmingham
12:30 – 13:30Lunch & Networking (Posters + Show & Tell)
13:30 – 14:00Prof John Goodacre, Challenge Director, DSbD, UKRI
Update on Government Security and Resilience Activities.
14:00 – 14:30Dr Ihsen Alouani, Queens University Belfast 
Update on TruDetect project (TBC).
14:30 – 14:45RISE Impact Competition Updates :
Dr Sangeet Saha, University of Essex 
SHIELD: A New Layer of Defense with Intelligent Hardware Monitoring for Safer Embedded Systems.
14:45 – 15:00Prof Gareth Howells, University of Essex
PaRtial Execution oF EncRypted dAta using reconfiguraBle hardware (PREFERABLE)
15:00 – 15:15Prof David Oswald, Prof Mark Ryan, Dr Xiao Yang, University of Birmingham
Combating fake media with edit-tolerant authentication .
15:15 – 15:45Early Career Researcher Pitches 
Closing Remarks
16:00 – 17:00RISE ISAB Meeting (closed session)

Our Speakers

Daniel Gruss is a Professor at Graz University of Technology. He teaches since 2010 and researches system security since 2014. Research highlights include the Flush+Flush side channel, the Rowhammer.js DRAM fault attack from JavaScript, and the Platypus software-based power side-channel attack. His research team co-discovered the Meltdown and Spectre bugs published in early 2018. In 2022, Daniel received a prestigious ERC Starting Grant to research the foundations of sustainable security.

Dr. Ahmad Atamli is a lecturer in Cyber security at the University of Southampton.  He graduated with a BSc. in Electrical and Computer Engineering from the Technion-Israel Institute of Technology in 2012. He received a DPhil from the University of Oxford in System Security in 2017. He joined Oxford as a Lecturer in Software Engineering in 2019, following which he moved to Southampton to lead the Hardware Security research. Dr. Atamli has published numerous papers and technical reports in IoT security, system security, hardware security, intrusion detection, malware analysis.

Dr Lucas Cordeiro -Lucas is a Reader in the Department of Computer Science at the University of Manchester (UoM), where he leads the Systems and Software Security (S3) Research Group. Dr. Cordeiro is also the Arm Centre of Excellence Director at UoM. In addition, he is affiliated with the Trusted Digital Systems Cluster at the Centre for Digital Trust and Society, the Formal Methods Group at UoM, and the Post-Graduate Programs in Electrical Engineering (PPGEE) and Informatics (PPGI) at the Federal University of Amazonas, Brazil.

Prof David Oswald is a Full Professor in the Centre for Cyber Security and Privacy at the University of Birmingham, UK. His main field of research is the security of embedded systems and trusted execution. On the one hand, the focus is on attack methods that exploit weaknesses in the physical implementation of mathematically secure cryptographic algorithms. Those techniques include both (passive) side-channel analysis and (active) fault injection, as well as reverse engineering. On the other hand, David is working on the practical realization of security systems in embedded applications. His research on vulnerabilities of various wide-spread systems (e.g. DESFire RFID smartcards, VW/Hitag2 RKE systems, and Intel SGX) has created awareness for the crucial importance of security among developers of embedded devices.

Mark Ryan is a Professor in Computer Security for the School of Computer Science and the lead for the Centre of Security and Privacy at the University of Birmingham.

Xiao Yang is a Research Fellow in Cyber Security. Her research filed is cryptography, with a main focus on zero-knowledge proof and applied cryptography. She obtained her PhD degree and worked as a postdoc in the Hong Kong Polytechnic University before joining the University of Birmingham.

Prof John Goodacre – John is Professor of Computer Architectures at the University of Manchester & Challenge Director at Digital Security by Design. He was previously Director of Technology and Systems in the Research Group at ARM Ltd. and was responsible for the design and introduction of the ARM MPCore multicore processor and associated technologies that enabled today’s smartphone and became the foundation for future data center infrastructure.

Dr Ihsen Alouani – Ihsen is a Senior Lecturer at Queens University Belfast. My research focuses on the security, trustworthiness, and privacy-preserving aspect of AI, particularly in identifying vulnerabilities and designing robust, trustworthy systems. I lead projects that explore AI robustness, neuromorphic computing, and energy-efficient AI. Our group combines theoretical and applied research, aiming to develop secure AI technologies that address complex, real-world threats.

Dr. Sangeet Saha is a Lecturer (Assistant Professor) in the School of Computer Science and Electronic Engineering at the University of Essex. His research addresses key challenges in embedded systems, spanning real-time scheduling (FPGAs, multicore systems), fault tolerance, energy-efficient heterogeneous computing for edge AI, and embedded device cybersecurity. A notable outcome is the FORENSIC technology, funded by Innovate UK’s CyberASAP program and showcased at the National Cyber Security Centre’s (NCSC) flagship event, CYBER UK 2025. Dr. Saha’s research has attracted funding from NCSC, The Royal Society, Innovate UK (UKRI), and the Higher Education Innovation Fund (HEIF). He publishes in leading venues, including IEEE/ACM Transactions journals and premier conferences such as DAC and CODES+ISSS.

Gareth Howells is Professor of Cyber Security and Founder, Director and Chief Technology Officer of cyber security technology company, Metrarc Ltd, a University spin-out company. He has been involved in research relating to cybersecurity and secure communications for over 35 years and has published over 240 papers in the technical literature, co-editing two books and contributing to several other edited publications. His core research interests are device authentication, biometrics, secure communications and identity management. His principal contribution to cybersecurity is the development of ICMetric techniques for the derivation of digital signatures and encryption keys directly from properties of physical circuits. The technology significantly alleviates the need to store a copy of an encryption key and the work has given rise to several significant worldwide patents.

Getting there

Prince Philip House

Prince Philip House,
3 Carlton House Terrace
London
SW1Y 5DG
United Kingdom