Experts from Lancaster University along with partners from Templar Executives, a leading UK cyber security company, have held the first UK-Morocco workshop into a key area of cyber security that aims to help unlock significant potential for green energy in the North African country.

Dr Daniel Prince, a Senior Lecturer in Cyber Security at Lancaster University, helped to deliver the event, which was focused on ‘cyber physical systems’, to key stakeholders in the Moroccan city of Rabat.

Cyber physical systems involve computers that are used to control mechanical objects and can be deployed in a wide range of applications, such as in renewable energy generation, and are anticipated to have a fundamental impact on how society operates.

As such, it is critical that systems incorporating cyber physical systems are robust against cyber attack. The development of solutions must therefore be accompanied by planning for security, continuity and resilience.

Sponsored by the Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council (EPSRC) and hosted by the Marita Group, the workshop, held on February 22, explored priority themes and opportunities for research collaboration between the UK and Morocco in challenges associated with cyber security and cyber physical systems including green hydrogen, renewables and international green energy supply networks.

Dr Prince said: “This workshop has given us a great opportunity to explore critical research areas with new international partners in a complex and uncertain world, where cyber security is increasingly central on the world stage.”

Morocco and the UK are nations at the forefront of renewable energy and green technologies and the workshop was a major step towards deepening the relationship between both countries in opportunities across business, energy, cyber security and data science.