About VeTSS

The Research Institute on Verified Trustworthy Software Systems (VeTSS) is an UK Academic Research Institute in Cyber Security, jointly hosted by the University of Surrey and Imperial College London, with Prof Brijesh Dongol (Surrey) and Dr Azalea Raad (Imperial) as Directors.

VeTSS is one of four research institutes within the National Cyber Security Centre (NCSC), bringing together leading academics, industry professionals, regulators and government representatives to ensure research into software stays focused on the safety and security challenges faced by the UK and mitigates the risks posed.

The aim of VeTSS is to address the challenge of traditional methods for ensuring software reliability no longer being adequate in modern contexts, by bringing together and supporting world-class UK academics and industrialists unified by a common interest in program analysis, testing, and verification. VeTSS stands at the forefront of research developments in fundamental theories and industrial-strength tools, targeting real-world applications. 

VeTSS started life in 2014 as the Research Institute in Automated Program Analysis and Verification (RIAPAV) at Imperial College London, with Prof Philippa Gardner as the director, and Dr Sergio Maffeis as co Director. 

RIAPAV, as the institute was then called, was the UK’s second Academic Research Institute in cyber security, funded by a £4.5 million research grant from GCHQ in partnership with EPSRC and BIS. The funding supported six research projects at universities across the UK, working towards achieving guarantees of correctness, safety and security in computer software.

In 2017, the Institute was succeeded by the Research Institute on Verified Trustworthy Software Systems (VeTSS). (2017-2022) under the sole directorship of Prof Philippa Garner. 

In this second iteration, VeTSS moved its focus slightly; its work aimed at bringing together world-class UK academics, industrialists and government employees with a common interest in software analysis, testing and verification, and supporting research on program analysis, testing and verification.  Thanks to funding from The National Cyber Security Centre (NCSC) VeTSS was able to run a number of calls for academic research projects and PhD studentships, the details of which can be found in our report.

VeTSS also organised a number of events aimed at the Verification community in the UK, including an annual workshop: “Formal Methods and Tools for Security (FMATS)” and the Verified Software workshop held at the Isaac Newton Institute in Cambridge in September 2019.

Equality, diversity and inclusion are core values underpinning our research and innovation aims. 

At VeTSS we believe that creative and innovative research needs diversity, inclusion and equality of access, and that as a Research Institute, we have a responsibility to identify and remove current barriers to participation. Please see our EDI statement to read about our goals and priorities and the practical steps that we are taking. 

The VeTSS Code of Conduct that governs all our events and public interaction can be found here.