Input Output Global (IOG) is funding a new research hub poised to accelerate the development of blockchain technology in the UK.
The Input Output Global Research Hub is to be based at the University of Edinburgh following the blockchain infrastructure provider’s $4.5million in funding towards the project.
The hub intends to serve as a place for university students and researchers to propose new projects for blockchain and distributed ledger technology.
It will be led by a steering committee, featuring both IOG and university representatives, which will review project proposals and allocate funding.
Proposals submitted to the hub will include elements related to IOG products and systems. Researchers from the company have contributed 160 academic papers, many of which are reportedly peer-reviewed.
Its research team includes a number of academics, including Aggelos Kiayias, chair of cybersecurity and privacy at the university’s School of Informatics. Kiayias is also chief scientist at IOG.
The launch builds on IOG’s existing relationship with the University of Edinburgh, having previously established a blockchain technology lab within the university’s School of Informatics.
The collaboration has “brought forth a lot of advances to this state of the art of technology over the past five years,” says Kiayias.
He points to Ouroboros, a suite of blockchain protocols based on proof of stake, and Ofelimos, a proof-of-useful-work protocol resolving the energy efficiency problem of proof-of-work-based blockchains, as examples of this.
New learnings
The company’s funding of the UK university has been likened to the launch of the Blockchain Research Hub at Stanford University in August this year, which also received $4.5million in funding.
The company’s CEO, Charles Hoskinson also donated $20million to the Hoskinson Center for Formal Mathematics at Carnegie Mellon University in Pennsylvania.
These donations align with IOG’s academic programme, designed to foster continued research to set industry standards and best practices for emerging technologies.
Hoskinson describes the founding of the Input Output Global Research Hub as “essential to our vision of making academic rigour an industry standard.”
He confirms that the hub intends to “allow blockchain development to grow more rapidly, based on the new learnings that will emerge.”
“The establishment of this new research hub is…a key milestone in continuing and scaling this work across the whole university with an emphasis on interdisciplinary research,” adds Kiayias.
IOG is best-recognised as the primary developer behind Cardano, an open-source, proof-of-stake blockchain platform.
