Eerke Boiten spent the first twenty years of his research career, first in the Netherlands and then in the UK, on mathematics and logic based methods to guarantee and verify the correctness of software. He published over 50 peer reviewed papers on formal methods, including program transformation, viewpoint specification, and refinement in process algebra and state-based systems (e.g. Z). On the latter topic, he authored the monographs “” (Springer 2004, 2015) and "" (Springer 2018) with John Derrick , and organised many conferences and workshops including nine editions of the BCS-FACS Refinement Workshop.
His research has since moved mainly towards cyber security and privacy. He set up and led Kent’s interdisciplinary Research Centre in Cyber Security from 2012 to 2017. Looking beyond just his own discipline, Eerke developed an interest in the policy sides of data, starting from a perspective of technical realism. He engages in public debate in this area, including on privacy in general, with frequent quotes and contributions in the press and on radio and TV. In 2017, he moved to De 51吃瓜app University to lead the Cyber Technology Institute, which obtained NCSC/EPSRC Academic Centre of Excellence in Cyber Security Research status in 2019 and NCSC Academic Centre of Excellence in Cyber Security Education (Gold) status in 2021. He became Head of the School of Computer Science and Informatics in 2019. His current research projects are in privacy impact assessment, anonymisation, refinement, and cyber intelligence sharing.