Research area	5G & Beyond
Dates	1st December 2023 - 31st March 2025
Funder	EPSRC
Contact	joiner-project@bristol.ac.uk

JOINER is the UK's first national accelerator programme towards 6G and beyond. It is a national R&D platform interconnecting academic institutes, research labs and industrial partners to enable innovation within a collaborative experimental environment. Bridging the gap between experimenters, services and equipment, the JOINER fabric is a dedicated transport network interconnecting all JOINER terminals across the UK while a multi-tenancy hybrid cloud platform enables end-to-end service provision.

01 University of Bristol

02 University of Oxford

03 University of Southampton

04 Imperial College London

05 Digital Catapult

06 University of Cambridge

07 University of Leeds

08 University of Glasgow

09 Queens University Belfast

10 Cranfield University

11 University College London

Joint Open Infrastructure for Networks Research

The JOINER project is set to accelerate the UK's telecom and technology approach by establishing a cutting-edge, national-scale experimentation platform designed to facilitate innovation, collaboration, and research across academia, industry, and government sectors.

With its ambitious vision, JOINER aims to integrate and upgrade existing national testbeds through a federated approach, enabling comprehensive research and development on future network technologies, including the pioneering of the UK's first full-scale 6G-­enabled platform. This initiative not only promises to enhance the UK's position as a leader in telecom innovation but also aims to strengthen the UK's influence on global standards and international collaborations.

JOINER's Aims

Large-scale host for experimental research across 11 interconnected locations, leveraging R&D investments with a roadmap for expansion.

Federated testbed for telecom ecosystem research, fostering sharing of experimental resources and introducing new technologies.

Facility for research collaboration among Hubs' academics, industry, and government, promoting pre-commercial collaboration.

Platform to accelerate translation of early-stage research, advancing TRL and introducing new IP and products to the UK supply chain.

Showcase collaborative R&D outcomes and impactful demonstrations of future networks, aiming for the UK's first full-scale 6G demonstration by March 2025.

Hands-on training centre for telecoms systems, contributing to a national skills development pipeline.

National champion demonstrating UK capabilities in future network concepts.