International Forum

Protecting Critical Infrastructure

Technology, Innovation and Partnership — the closing day of Bootcamp 2026, bringing government, industry and the next generation of innovators into the same room

What the Forum Is

In April 2026, General Valerii Zaluzhnyi, Ambassador of Ukraine to the UK, opened the Port Infrastructure Protection Forum in London with a warning: attacking a country's economy no longer requires expensive weapons — cheap, scalable systems can now cripple ports, energy grids and logistics networks that air defences were never built to stop.

That forum brought together government ministers, Ukrainian officials and industry leaders across four panels. This new International Forum scales the same conversation, on home ground, in Oxford.

On 23 November, the Forum meets on the final day of the Cherwell College Innovation Bootcamp — five days in which students, researchers and young entrepreneurs work in multidisciplinary teams on real infrastructure and security challenges. The Bootcamp builds the solutions. The Forum gives them a stage.

Britain is already acting on that lesson. A new UK-Ukraine defence pact gives British engineers access to Ukraine's Avengers AI Labs battlefield sensor data: millions of tracked targets, gathered from thousands of frontline cameras. A joint AI cell is now adapting the technology for civilian sites — airports, prisons, railways, power stations. It sits inside the wider UK-Ukraine Enhanced Security and Defence Industrial Collaboration Declaration, signed in London this March as part of the two countries' 100 Year Partnership.

This Forum continues that exchange on civilian and industrial ground — bringing a Ukrainian delegation to share what they have learned defending ports, energy grids and digital infrastructure under real attack, alongside the British researchers, investors and technology companies building what comes next

Two Countries, One Interest

“Ukraine has learned, under fire, what the rest of us are only beginning to plan for. Britain has the science, the investment and the platforms to turn that knowledge into something the whole world can use. Neither side can do this alone — and this is the moment to build it together.”

— Helen Clarke, Co-Founder, Oxbridge Foundation

Ukraine's advantage here isn't something Britain can buy or simulate: hard-won, tested knowledge of how infrastructure actually fails under attack, and how to defend it under real conditions. Britain's advantage is what turns that knowledge into scale — a world-leading research base, serious investment, and the industrial capacity to build and export what this moment demands.

Neither side has the whole picture on its own. Put together, they do.

The day opens with a keynote address on the state of critical infrastructure security, followed by expert panels bringing together government officials, industry leaders and technologists. Each panel tackles a specific angle — from port and energy security to cyber resilience and autonomous systems — with speakers drawn from both the UK and Ukraine. This is where the Forum's core agenda gets set: not general discussion, but specific positions from people currently making decisions in this space.
Teams from the week's Bootcamp step onto the same stage to present the solutions they've built over five days, in front of the Forum's full delegate audience and a panel of industry judges. Each presentation is short and direct — the idea, the problem it solves, and why it matters to the people in the room. It's the moment the two programmes genuinely meet: real infrastructure challenges, addressed by people building for the first time in front of the audience who could actually put their work to use.
The judging panel names the winning teams and presents the Bootcamp's awards, including the Grand Prize. Sponsors who have championed a specific challenge track present their own section awards directly to the teams they've mentored throughout the week. It's a short, focused ceremony — recognition earned over five days of work, not a formality tacked onto the end of the day.
The judging panel names the winning teams and presents the Bootcamp's awards, including the Grand Prize. Sponsors who have championed a specific challenge track present their own section awards directly to the teams they've mentored throughout the week. It's a short, focused ceremony — recognition earned over five days of work, not a formality tacked onto the end of the day.

Why It Matters Now

Critical infrastructure — energy, ports, transport, digital networks — was built on an assumption that no longer holds: that physical distance means safety. In April 2026, Britain saw exactly how far that assumption had slipped.

The Ministry of Defence publicly confirmed a months-long Russian submarine operation mapping the undersea cables that carry roughly 99% of the UK's international internet traffic, alongside subsea gas infrastructure.

Then the Defence Secretary, John Healey, warned Moscow directly that any attempt to damage them would carry serious consequences. Months later, the House of Commons Defence Committee heard that Britain lags behind Russia in undersea security, leaving cables and energy infrastructure underpinning trillions of pounds in trade exposed.

Ukraine has spent the past several years defending against exactly this kind of threat — not in theory, but under fire. At the Port Infrastructure Protection Forum in London this April, Ukraine's Ambassador to the UK, General Valerii Zaluzhnyi, put it bluntly: striking infrastructure no longer requires expensive missiles. Cheap, scalable systems can now cripple ports and energy networks that current air defences were never built to stop.

Technology Integration

Topics on the Agenda

Infrastracture

Security of energy, transport, port and digital infrastructure
Cybersecurity of critical systems

Implementation

Autonomous maritime and aerial systems
Monitoring, control and digital surveillance technology

Optimization

AgriTech and food security innovation
Dual-use innovation and engineering solutions

A Proven Track Record

This is not a first attempt at convening this conversation. In April 2026, Oxbridge Foundation, Cherwell College Oxford and International Humanitarian College London ran the Port Infrastructure Protection Forum in London — four expert panels, government ministers, Ukrainian officials, and delegates from the Ukrainian Ports Association and SMI Ports and Terminals Group, among others. The keynote came from General Valerii Zaluzhnyi himself.

The 2026 Oxford Forum is built by the same team, with the same ability to bring senior government and industry figures into one room around a single agenda.

Learn More

The Forum is built for people who make decisions about infrastructure resilience, not just observe it: government departments, port and energy operators, defence and security industry leaders, universities and research centres, technology companies, and international partner organisations.

If your organisation works anywhere near critical infrastructure, security, or the technology that protects either, this is a room worth being in.

Partner With Us

There's a narrow window when a partnership like this is worth the most: before the standards for British-Ukrainian infrastructure security are set, not after.

The organisations that engage with this Forum now help shape what that partnership looks like for the next decade.

This isn't about supporting Ukraine or supporting Britain. It's about two countries building something neither could build as well alone, at the one moment that's actually possible.

Partners who join now aren't giving to a cause; they're shaping the standard the rest of the industry will eventually have to follow.

Get Started

Areas of Focus

Agricultural Export Infrastructure. Grain terminals, storage facilities and the export corridors behind them. For Ukraine this isn't an abstraction — agricultural export capacity has been a direct target and a matter of global food security, which is also why it connects directly to the Bootcamp's AgriTech track.
Ports. Cargo handling, customs infrastructure, and the naval and commercial traffic that keeps trade moving. Ukraine's own ports have operated under direct attack for years — experience that is already reshaping how British and allied ports think about resilience.
Transport and Logistics Hubs. Railways, road networks and distribution centres — the connective tissue between every other sector here, and the one most exposed to cascading failure.
Water Supply Systems. Treatment plants, pumping stations and distribution networks: infrastructure that tends to fail silently, and one of the least discussed but most consequential categories on this list.
Energy Grids. Power generation, transmission networks and the substations that keep both running. Few countries have more practical experience defending and rapidly repairing energy infrastructure under sustained attack than Ukraine.
Data Centres. The physical facilities behind cloud storage and AI processing, increasingly treated as national infrastructure rather than purely commercial assets. This track covers physical security and resilience under both cyber and kinetic threat.
Telecommunications Networks. Mobile networks, fibre backbones and the undersea cables that keep communication running when other systems fail — a subject that moved from theoretical to immediate for Britain in 2026.

Sponsorship packages for the Forum run alongside — and complement — the Bootcamp's own partnership tiers

Three levels are available:

Strategic Partner

the Forum's title partner: keynote slot, a named thematic track, a seat on the Bootcamp final pitch jury, VIP delegate access, and industry exclusivity

Industry Partner

a speaking slot on one of the Forum's panels, a stand in the delegate foyer, and delegate passes for your team

Tech Showcase Partner

a demonstration stand in front of Forum delegates, ideal for companies with a product to show rather than a platform to speak from

Every tier includes seats at the joint Gala Dinner with the Bootcamp. Full package details and pricing are available on request

Whether you're considering a partnership, sending a delegate, or simply want to know more about how the Forum connects to the Bootcamp, we're glad to talk it through.

Related reading

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