The RBOC (Resilience Beyond Observed Capabilities) Network Plus is designed to create new knowledge, new capabilities and new opportunities for collaboration to help the UK prepare for security threats in the coming decades. The starting point is a scenario of a catastrophic attack on digital and energy networks in the year 2051. RBOC N+ will convene some of the UK's leading experts in engineering, physical sciences, mathematics, health sciences, social and behavioural sciences, arts and humanities, and cross-disciplinary topics such as AI, security studies and urban planning, together with government and industry, to refine, deepen and test this scenario and to use it to create immersive simulations.
In responding to the scenario, the RBOC Network+ will investigate what capabilities, techniques and vulnerabilities could be exploited by adversaries to mount high-impact attacks against the UK, and what capabilities (technological, organisational, legal and behavioural) could be used by public authorities (central government, local authorities, first responders) to prepare for and respond to such attacks.
To develop, accelerate and apply these capabilities to prepare for, respond to, recover, and mitigate threats, the RBOC Network+ will lead and facilitate the production of original research using novel combinations of disciplines and methods, and build new relationships between researchers and policy makers and practitioners in government and industry. It will also develop a ‘safe-space’ simulator for modelling the scenario with outputs providing insight to policy and practice implications, impacts and research gaps.