Advancing technology in the digital world is allowing for new possibilities of shaping major social organizations. In the name of progress, governments have been showing interest in these recent advancements, supporting an innovative approach. In the UK, distributed ledger technology (DLT) has been given a great opportunity to be applied towards innovative projects across many fields – from banking to healthcare to energy supply.
EPSRC
The Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council (EPSRC) has set aside over £3.6 million to fund seven different projects using blockchain technology in April this year. The EPSRC is the primary funding agency of scientific research, and invests approximately £800m annually towards new initiatives. The Digital Economy Theme of the UK’s Research Council focuses on the “transformational impact of digital technologies on aspects of community life, cultural experiences, future society, and the economy.” The research aims to find new uses for DLT which incorporate elements of trust, identity, security and privacy within a digital business model.
Each of the projects funded by the EPSRC collaborates with high-ranking universities, as university professors lead the projects. This brings academia together with industry partners to figure out the technical, social, legal and economic aspects of the blockchain.
“Distributed Ledger Technology may be synonymous with Bitcoin to many, but as these projects show it has disruptive potential across a wide range of products and services. If it delivers on its radical promise, it could make a significant impact on the economy and society.” – Professor Philip Nelson, EPSRC Chief Executive
BARAC
Blockchain technology for Algorithmic Regulation And Compliance (BARAC) is the project with the highest funding, with a grant of £617,000, which will be examining how blockchain technology may overturn the current regulatory compliance system into a more effective and secure model. The consortium of BARAC includes University College London, London School of Economics, Kings College and the University of Reading from the academic sector; partners from the financial industry, such as the Bank of England, RBS, HSBC and R3 Consortium; partners from the technological field, such as British Telecom and ATS; as well as law firms. The Cyprus International Institute of Management has the role of transferring the technological knowledge of the blockchain to the different stakeholders, and to work together with the Cyprus Securities and Exchange Commission to show how this technology can be used to obtain and record financial activity and date which is securely retrievable for regulation and compliance purposes.
Household-Supplier Energy Market
This project aims to revolutionize the energy market by creating a peer-to-peer free trade between household-owned micro-generators. The trading of energy on a household level democratizes the system and allows both individuals and companies to trade, based on a trusted distributed ledger technology. This means that each trade and transaction is recorded, secured through encryption, and verifiable, guaranteeing accurate assignment of rights and responsibilities for trades and billing, allowing equal access to all interested participants. With a grant of £459,000, HoSEM brings together Universities and Lancaster and Exeter with EDF Energy.
Trusted and Transparent Voting Systems
This projects makes use of blockchain technology to enable a trustworthy digital system in voting within organizations, such as trade unions, private companies, political parties, professional organizations, clubs or charities where balloting is required. This voting system using a blockchain accommodates the specific or pre-emptive voting rights of different shareholders which are encoded in agreed-upon smart contracts. EPSRC claims that with this technology, the voting system would be able to give results which more closely reflect the collective choice of the voters. The partners developing this include Crowdcube Ltd, Electoral Reform Services, Monax Industries together with Kind College London, with a grant of £614,000.
Other projects include: ARCHANGEL – Trusted Archives of Digital Public Records, Co-operative Models for Evidence-based Healthcare Redistribution, Distributed Ledgers and Decentralised Energy in sub-Saharan Africa, and Smart Money: Precision Data Management for Distributed Ledger enabled Central Bank issued Digital Currencies.
The recent funding by the ESPRC demonstrates the interest for and support of innovative applications of distributed ledgers. The UK Government Office for Science report from 2016 states that technical innovations of the blockchain can enable “revolutionary changes” which will “ultimately cause major changes in the way in which the economy and society itself is organised and governed”. This funded research for the development of the various uses of blockchain depicts the realization that efficiency, verifiability and accountability provided by this technology.