From the left: Steve Hailes, Brad Karp, Mark Handley, Kyle Jamieson, Damon Wischik. See also the full list of group members

UCL became the first site outside the US connected to the ARPAnet (the precursor to the Internet) in 1973. Since then, the Systems and Networks Research Group at UCL has been a global leader in the design, building, and analysis of networked computer systems. The group stands out among high-profile networking research groups for its success spanning research and practice: we disseminate high-impact scientific results in leading publication venues, and we engage closely with the IETF standards body to ensure that these innovations find wide use in the Internet. We regularly place our PhD graduates in positions in the world's elite computer science research institutions, both in academia and industry.

We are excited to be networks researchers at this stage of the evolution of the Internet, because of two developments that together signal a renaissance in how we understand and build networks:

• The first is that more and more aspects of networks are open to 'hacking' i.e. we can use software to try out new styles of communication, new ways to build protocols, and new designs for Internet architecture. This is especially true with software radios, and also with peer-to-peer networking.
• The second is that there have been major advances in understanding how it is that complex behaviour emerges in large systems built out of simple components. This is prompting new approaches to congestion control and traffic management.

The Internet is by far the most complex interconnected system ever built by man; it has become an essential part of modern society, yet much of its behaviour is based on standards from a simpler time, and the dynamics at scale are not as well understood as we might wish. To thrive, fundamental changes will be needed in the next decade. It is the role of networking research to shape this future.

Find out more:
Research thrusts
Members of the group
Early history of internetworking at UCL

Together with the Networks and Services Research Laboratory in the EE department, we constitute NetSys, the interdepartmental network systems centre at UCL.

Sponsors

We gratefully acknowledge financial support from Intel, Microsoft, RIM, the Royal Society, the Royal Academy of Engineering, EPSRC, EU, DARPA, and the British Council