The agreement strengthens an existing relationship, where Thales has worked with Bristol for 20 years on several joint UK and European Union based research projects, whilst supporting over 15 doctoral students.

In all its countries of operation, Thales strives to build long-term partnerships with local academic institutions, design centres and high-tech firms to imagine innovative use cases, business models and technologies.

Dr Alvin Wilby, VP Research, Technical & Innovation, Thales UK said “Thales has a real capacity to innovate through partnerships across the entire high-tech ecosystem: start-ups, universities... We are proud to broaden our partnerships by working with the University of Bristol."

Thales aims to identify and exploit a broad range and scope of innovation across its business to drive profitability and sustainable growth. Fundamental to this is the ability to understand emerging technologies, through the facilitation of partnerships, including academia. Following on from similar programmes across the globe, this is the first dedicated strategic partnership Thales has entered into with a UK university.

Working with the University’s Departments of Electrical and Electronic Engineering, Computer Science and the Systems Engineering Centre, Thales will look to develop a programme of work around Security, Communications, Sensors, Autonomy and Complex Systems. The collaboration will continue to be a key relationship for Thales in the years to come with a focus on the key challenges that confront modern engineering teaching and technology research, setting out a framework for interdisciplinary working that organises state-of-the-art integrative research, built around a set of Thales use cases.

“We’re very excited to sign this strategic partnerships agreement with Thales and look forward to seeing the exciting new technology which will be developed in partnership with our students and researchers in the future. Such a partnership offers our staff and students a unique insight into real-life research challenges across a variety of sectors, and an opportunity to develop solutions to some of the technological and societal challenges.” said Professor Nishan Canagarajah, Pro Vice-Chancellor for Research at the University of Bristol.