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The government is supporting a £2m fund to develop facilities for testing the cybersecurity credentials of autonomous vehicles.

The Centre for Connected and Autonomous Vehicles is inviting proposals for developments that would offer ways to “measure cyber-physical resilience and maintain cybersecurity for vehicles, roadside infrastructure, [and] supporting services”.

Proposals must also “provide input specifications for one or more new cyber-test facilities [and] explore opportunities to develop new cyber-related services”, the government said.

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The government picked out four specific themes it is keen for projects to focus on: monitoring the “cyber health” of vehicles and infrastructure; threats posed to networks; threats posed to vehicles; and ways to combat and mitigate risks. 

Suggestions on other themes are also welcome.

CCAV will work alongside Innovate UK and Zensic – an industry organisation that aims to bring together government, academia, and the private sector – to award the money. Up to five projects will each receive a grant of as much as to £400,000 towards costs.

Individual organisations and consortia can submit bids until 25 September, with winners to be chosen by mid-November. Winning projects must run for between three and four months, getting underway before the new year and wrapping up by the end of March 2020. 

CCAV was founded in 2015 as a policy unit jointly run by the Department for Transport and the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy. Its mission is to "work across government to support the market for connected and automated vehicles". Over the coming months and years, it aims to support the market with an investment of £250m that will be matched by industry funding.