University College Oxford to Launch Blockchain Research Facility

University College Oxford is set to become the latest collegiate institution to establish a center for blockchain technology research. The school, which is touted as being the oldest College of Oxford University, wishes to be at the forefront of distributed ledger technology innovation.

Bringing Blockchain to the Mainstream

According to a press release published on PR Newswire, the university has created an ultramodern research facility dedicated to blockchain technology. Fellow Professor Bill Roscoe FREng will be in charge of the research center. Professor Roscoe has more than 30 years of experience in applied cryptography as well as concurrency and automated verification. Commenting on the project, Roscoe said:

“The new center focuses on bringing the blockchain to the mainstream. This vision will be achieved by using green mining technology and embracing regulation through appropriate Know Your Client (KYC) guidelines.”

With a focus on sustainable mining operations, Professor Roscoe will be joined by a group of experts in several subject areas involved in the distributed ledger technology paradigm. Apart from ‘green mining’, the team also plans to work on areas such as blockchain trust, privacy, escrow, as well as fair exchange protocols for blockchain-based asset exchange platforms.

The facility is being designed to incorporate research activities across many related disciplines that apply to the distributed ledger industry, such as economics and law. Already, the research has made significant progress in solving some of the most significant challenges facing the industry such as the blockchain scalability problem.

Universities and Blockchain Research

University College Oxford isn’t the first school to delve into blockchain research activities. Institutions of higher learning have long been at the forefront of technological advancements. In the case of distributed ledger technology, the desire is even more profound given that the foundation for the technology was conceptualized by seasoned researchers Stuart Haber and W. Scott Stornetta in the early 90s.

In June, Stanford University announced the creation of a center for blockchain technology research. Just like with University College Oxford, Stanford’s distributed ledger lab will focus on understanding and improving upon the current distributed ledger paradigm. The center plans to work in tandem with notable distributed technology institutions like the Ethereum Foundation, OmiseGo, and Protocol Labs to tackle problems such as privacy and blockchain scalability.