TRILATERAL RESEARCH LTD

Their core work

Trilateral Research is a London-based consultancy specializing in the ethical, legal, and societal dimensions of security technologies and artificial intelligence. They provide responsible innovation frameworks, privacy impact assessments, and policy analysis for EU-funded security and law enforcement projects. Their core contribution is bridging the gap between technology development and human rights compliance — ensuring that tools built for policing, counter-terrorism, and crisis management meet ethical and legal standards. They also conduct applied social research on topics ranging from gender equality to pandemic response.

What they specialise in

How they've shifted over time

In their early H2020 period (2015–2018), Trilateral focused on predictive analytics, e-government transparency, and cybercrime investigation tools — contributing to projects on malware analysis, social network analytics, and online terrorist content detection. From 2019 onward, their work shifted decisively toward AI ethics governance, pandemic crisis management, and responsible security innovation, with projects like SHERPA, TechEthos, STAMINA, and COVINFORM dominating their portfolio. This evolution tracks the broader European policy shift toward responsible AI and societal resilience, positioning Trilateral as a go-to partner for the ethical dimensions of security research.

Trilateral is increasingly positioned as a responsible AI and ethics governance specialist, making them a strong partner for any consortium needing to address the societal impact of emerging security technologies.

How they like to work

Trilateral overwhelmingly operates as a consortium partner (28 of 37 projects) rather than a coordinator (only 2), and frequently appears as a third party (7 projects), suggesting they are often brought in for specific ethical, legal, or social science expertise. With 419 unique partners across 44 countries, they maintain an exceptionally broad network — they are a hub organization that works with many different consortia rather than repeating the same partnerships. This makes them easy to integrate into new teams, as they are experienced collaborators accustomed to diverse consortium configurations.

Trilateral has collaborated with 419 unique partners across 44 countries, giving them one of the broadest networks among UK-based security research SMEs. Their partnerships span the full EU security research ecosystem, from law enforcement agencies to universities and technology providers.

What sets them apart

Trilateral occupies a rare niche: they are a private company that specializes in the ethical, legal, and societal implications of security technologies — a combination that most tech SMEs and academic groups cannot offer under one roof. While technology developers build the tools and universities write theoretical papers, Trilateral provides the practical responsible innovation bridge that EU security projects increasingly require. Their 37-project track record and dual expertise in both hard security topics (counter-terrorism, cybercrime) and soft governance topics (human rights, gender equality) makes them uniquely versatile for consortia needing ELSI (ethical, legal, societal implications) coverage.

Highlights from their portfolio

• CC-DRIVER
  Their largest project (EUR 949K) and one of only two they coordinated — focused on understanding cybercriminality drivers including juvenile cybercrime.
• TechEthos
  Their second-largest funding (EUR 663K) and a flagship ethics governance project examining high-impact technologies, reflecting their core positioning.
• COVINFORM
  A EUR 589K pandemic response project combining epidemiology, migration studies, gender studies, and misinformation research — showcasing their interdisciplinary reach.