Centre for Software Reliability
The Centre for Software Reliability (CSR) at City, University of London, in the School of Science and Technology, works on risk and dependability of technical and socio-technical systems, with a particular focus on systematic failures due to design faults and vulnerabilities. Our methods include probabilistc and statistical methods for assessment of safety, reliability and security; assurance cases; static verification. Areas of ongoing research include, among others, assurance of autonomous systems, integration of safety and security in embedded systems, risk ad resilience in interconnected critical infrastructures, advances in blockchain technology, security in Internet of Things.
CSR was founded in 1983 (in the then School of Informatics). Since then, it has been characterised by focusing a substantial part of its research on assessment of dependability (reliability, safety, security), for guiding both system design and decisions by clients, users and regulatory authorities. As our name suggests, our early research was focused on software specifically - particularly the problems of measurement, assurance and prediction of reliability using probabilistic modelling; but our focus quickly expanded to a system view and to diverse threats, including safety and security for software-dependent systems of various complexity, and risks from physical or design faults, other human error and intentional attack.
Over the years, CSR has attracted millions of pounds of funding for its research in the form of research grants, contracts and consulting. This has come from industry, charities and government organisations in the UK, EU and US. About half of our research support has come from the UK's Engineering and Physical Science Research Council (EPSRC). CSR collaborates widely with academic and industrial organisations in Europe and the US.