Hear from our partners

Dan Warren, Head of Communications Research at Samsung UK

"Bristol's Smart Internet Lab has been one of our favourite partners—and that’s because of our long-standing relationship. When we started looking at universities to fund joint research, Bristol was at the top of our list. That led to our early work together on zero-downtime handover, which established the relationship that eventually led to the REASON Open Networks Project.

"The critical thing is that Bristol and Smart have an end-to-end systems view, which aligns perfectly with how we see the challenges and opportunities for future networks. It’s not enough to study one domain; you have to understand the full system—especially as we look toward 6G and complex features like network slicing."

Dan Kilper, Director at CONNECT Centre, Dublin

"We collaborate with the Smart Internet Lab on a project called Eco-eNET, which is developing a new kind of network at the edge that integrates both optical and wireless together to create more efficiencies and provide better resilience and quality of service.

"I think collaboration is absolutely essential in this space as it's the way we really move things forward in positive ways that are efficient and effective."

Maria Lema, CEO, Weaver Labs

"There are so many benefits for us working with the Smart Internet Lab. We come from a university background, so we like to do research, and we love to collaborate with others. But as a business, collaborative research is vital for us to advance and succeed.

"We get to test new ideas that we might not be able to test in an isolated context. So, for instance, we created a messaging system that we then put forward to the consortium of project partners, which resulted in ideas on how to improve it. Now, it is an integral part of the mATRIC."

Konstantinos Katsaros, Head of Technology for Future Networks and 5G at Digital Catapult

"Digital Catapult is a deep tech innovation organisation — we're all about helping UK businesses grow by applying advanced technologies. One of our key focus areas is future networks — 5G, 6G and beyond.

"Our collaboration with Bristol goes way back. One of our earliest joint efforts was on 5G Smart Tourism, part of the UK’s 5G Testbeds and Trials programme. More recently, we worked together on a European project that involved building an orchestration platform using the 5G UK Exchange—a piece of work that Bristol was deeply involved in.

"First, there's strong leadership and the wider team have a long-term vision that's really inspiring. Second, their facilities are unparalleled — not just their lab space, but also their outdoor testbeds around Bristol's Millennium Square and the whole city. That gives us the ability to do large-scale trials and demos in real-world conditions."