Cyber Essentials supports our Partnership, Apprenticeship and Research and Knowledge Exchange ambitions. Achieving accreditation will enhance our credibility and help us expand our activities in all these strategically important areas.
Peter Taylor, Chief Operating Officer
Our teams are reviewing systems, tightening processes, and improving the way we manage digital risks in support of our Cyber Essentials accreditation work.
The most noticeable change will come as we introduce a new way to keep university data secure on your personal devices. If you access university systems like Outlook or Teams through your personal phone, tablet or computer, you’ll need to set up our new protection tools. Without this, the apps won’t connect with your University of Greenwich account.
There are some important steps you need to take before we rollout these changes, to make sure you can continue to access our systems and data.
Keep your personal phones, tablets and computers up to date
Our Cyber Essentials work requires updates to our digital security over the coming months. As we implement these changes, devices which are not running on supported software will no longer be able to access our systems. For detailed instructions about how to keep your device up to date, you can refer to the support area within the manufacturers' official website. This guidance from the National Cyber Security Centre contains useful links.
We recommend that you turn on 'automatic updates' in your device's settings, if available. This will mean you do not have to remember to apply updates.
Supporting our 2030 ambitions
For Partnerships, Cyber Essentials directly supports our wider partnerships sub‑strategy around workforce and skills. Achieving this accreditation will give us the ability to collaborate with external organisations who expect these standards as part of procurement and due diligence.
For Research and Knowledge Exchange, Cyber Essentials supports our ambition to deliver world-leading, rigorous, and impactful/creative research. This accreditation will assure funders of our secure research data management and enhance our credibility.
Strengthens eligibility and credibility
- Cyber Essentials is now a common prerequisite in public‑sector tenders and contracting, particularly for the NHS or where data‑handling, digital services or joint delivery are involved.
- Achieving accreditation enables us to continue to secure significant income streams that could otherwise be passed to our competitors.
- Many UK research funders, including Innovate UK, UK Government Departments, and defence- or security-sensitive programmes, require or strongly prefer Cyber Essentials certification. This means greater eligibility, reduced due diligence delays, and higher credibility.
Opens doors to new partnerships
- Cyber Essentials is a pre-requisite for Greenwich to be listed as a supplier on Crown Commercial Services (CCS). Once approved, we would be recognised as a trusted, vetted and pre‑qualified supplier to the UK public sector, industry and community partners. This is a requirement for suppliers of apprenticeships and will promote Greenwich to a wider audience.
Enhances partner confidence and collaboration
- Cyber Essentials underpins our partnerships and workforce/skills ambitions, assuring employers and stakeholders that our systems meet recognised security standards, which builds trust and supports deeper collaboration.
- Cyber Essentials provides visible assurance to industry partners, SMEs, public-sector bodies, and international collaborators that Greenwich has strong baseline protections in place. This is particularly valuable in multidisciplinary research projects involving sensitive data or intellectual property.
Reduces cyber risk across research projects
- Universities are frequent targets for cyberattacks due to the value of research data and IP. Cyber Essentials reduces risks such as ransomware, phishing, data breaches, and compromised devices. For GRI, this directly protects project continuity, commercial partnerships, and long-term research outputs.
Streamlines research bidding and contracting processes
- Bids increasingly require detailed information on institutional cybersecurity. With Cyber Essentials in place, we can:
- Provide standardised evidence for multiple bids.
- Reduce delays caused by repeated security questionnaires.
- Simplify contract negotiation with partners and funders.
- This improves efficiency across the proposal lifecycle and reduces admin burden for academics the Funding Development team.
Supports secure research data management
- Cyber Essentials reinforces secure handling of research data throughout the project lifecycle, from bid development through delivery to project closure. It strengthens:
- Device security for fieldwork and remote research.
- Secure access to shared research systems.
- Protected data exchanges with external collaborators.