Membership

Become a member of the CORNERSTONE Photonics Innovation Centre

We are excited to launch the first phase of our membership scheme, bringing together a dynamic community of experts, innovators, and industry leaders.

Our initial focus is on elevating the profile of silicon photonics in the UK, but we welcome international partners who are keen to contribute to and benefit from our growing ecosystem.

Why Join?

As a member, you will:

✅ 50% discount on MPW access for anyone based at a UK university and for UK SME first time users

✅ Opportunity to apply for funding via our Innovation Fund for eligible organisations

✅ Ability to apply for Future World Startup support cohort programme

✅ Gain early access to events and training opportunities that may have limited capacity, including:

  • PIC design flow and fabrication training
  • Start-up support activities
  • Annual user days to showcase your latest developments
  • Policy engagement series in collaboration with Public Policy Southampton
  • Community needs workshops

✅ Amplify your impact by contributing to case studies that demonstrate the potential of silicon photonics technology

✅ Gain access to member only information such as third party market and technology reports

 

Join us in building the future of silicon photonics—become a member today!

Membership form



At The CORNERSTONE, we’re committed to protecting and respecting your privacy.
This Policy explains when and why we collect personal information about people who visit our website, how we use it, the conditions under which we may disclose it to others and how we keep it secure.
We may change this Policy from time to time so please check this page occasionally to ensure that you’re happy with any changes. By using our website, you’re agreeing to be bound by this Policy.
Any questions regarding this Policy and our privacy practices should be sent to us using the following details:
University of Southampton, Building 60, University Road, Southampton, SO17 1BJ.
Email: cornerstone@soton.ac.uk

How do we collect information from you?
We obtain information about you when you use our website, for example, when you complete the contact form, when you complete the site registration form, purchase a product from our store or engage with other forms within our site.

What type of information is collected from you?
The personal information we collect might include your name, address, email address, IP address, and information regarding what pages are accessed and when. If you make a donation online or purchase a product from us, your card information is not held by us, it is collected by our third party payment processors, who specialise in the secure online capture and processing of credit/debit card transactions, as explained below.

Website recording
Like many other websites, The CORNERSTONE website uses cookies. ‘Cookies’ are small pieces of information sent by an organisation to your computer and stored on your hard drive to allow that website to recognise you when you visit. They collect statistical data about your browsing actions and patterns and do not identify you as an individual. For example, we use cookies to store your country preference. This helps us to improve our website and deliver a better more personalised service.
It is possible to switch off cookies by setting your browser preferences. For more information on how to switch off cookies on your computer, visit our full cookies policy. Turning cookies off may result in a loss of functionality when using our website.

Use of ‘cookies’
Google Analytics
These cookies are used to collect information about how visitors use our site. We use the information to compile reports and to help us improve the site. The cookies collect information in an anonymous form, including the number of visitors to the site, where visitors have come to the site from and the pages they visited. For more information on Google Analytic’s privacy policy, click here.

How is your information used?
We may use your information to :
• Contact you regarding queries raised in the contact form;
• Seek your views or comments on the services we provide;
• Notify you of changes to our services;
• Send you communications which you have requested and that may be of interest to you.
• These may include information about campaigns, appeals, other fundraising activities, promotions of our associated companies goods and services;
• Process a grant or job application.
We review our retention periods for personal information on a regular basis. We are legally required to hold some types of information to fulfil our statutory obligations. We will hold your personal information on our systems for as long as is necessary for the relevant activity, or as long as is set out in any relevant contract you hold with us.

Who has access to your information?
We will not sell or rent your information to third parties.
We will not share your information with third parties for marketing purposes.
Third Party Service Providers working on our behalf: We may pass your information to our third party service providers, agents subcontractors and other associated organisations for the purposes of completing tasks and providing services to you on our behalf (for example to process donations and send you mailings).
However, when we use third party service providers, we disclose only the personal information that is necessary to deliver the service and we have a contract in place that requires them to keep your information secure and not to use it for their own direct marketing purposes. Please be reassured that we will not release your information to third parties beyond the company for them to use for their own direct marketing purposes, unless you have requested us to do so, or we are required to do so by law, for example, by a court order or for the purposes of prevention of fraud or other crime.
When you are using our secure store pages, your payments are processed by a third party payment processor, who specialises in the secure online capture and processing of credit/debit card transactions. If you have any questions regarding secure transactions, please contact us.
We may transfer your personal information to a third party as part of a sale of some or all of our business and assets to any third party or as part of any business restructuring or reorganisation, or if we’re under a duty to disclose or share your personal data in order to comply with any legal obligation or to enforce or apply our terms of use or to protect the rights, property or safety of our supporters and customers. However, we will take steps with the aim of ensuring that your privacy rights continue to be protected.

Your choices
You have a choice about whether or not you wish to receive information from us. If you do not want to receive direct marketing communications from us about our exciting products and services, then you can select your choices by ticking the relevant boxes situated on the form on which we collect your information.
We will not contact you for marketing purposes by email, phone or text message unless you have given your prior consent. We will not contact you for marketing purposes by post if you have indicated that you do not wish to be contacted.
How you can access and update your information
The accuracy of your information is important to us. You have the right to request a copy of the information we hold about you so that you can ensure its accuracy. You can do this by the following methods:

Send an email to the administrator and request the information held about you;
Email: cornerstone@soton.ac.uk
Right to erasure
Visitors / users of the site should have the ability to have all records of their personal data held by a business where there is no legitimate reason for that business to maintain that reason. This includes where GDPR is super-ceded by other laws governing the details obtained.
This section should clarify how users request erasure.
Security precautions in place to protect the loss, misuse or alteration of your information
When you give us personal information, we take steps to ensure that it’s treated securely. Any sensitive information (such as credit or debit card details) is encrypted and protected with the following software 128 Bit encryption on SSL. When you are on a secure page, a lock icon will appear on the bottom of web browsers such as Microsoft Internet Explorer.
Non-sensitive details (your email address etc.) are transmitted normally over the Internet, and this can never be guaranteed to be 100% secure. As a result, while we strive to protect your personal information, we cannot guarantee the security of any information you transmit to us, and you do so at your own risk. Once we receive your information, we make our best effort to ensure its security on our systems. Where we have given (or where you have chosen) a password which enables you to access certain parts of our websites, you are responsible for keeping this password confidential. We ask you not to share your password with anyone.
Profiling
We may analyse your personal information to create a profile of your interests and preferences so that we can contact you with information relevant to you. We may make use of additional information about you when it is available from external sources to help us do this effectively. We may also use your personal information to detect and reduce fraud and credit risk.
Links to other websites
Our website may contain links to other websites run by other organisations. This privacy policy applies only to our website‚ so we encourage you to read the privacy statements on the other websites you visit. We cannot be responsible for the privacy policies and practices of other sites even if you access them using links from our website.
In addition, if you linked to our website from a third party site, we cannot be responsible for the privacy policies and practices of the owners and operators of that third party site and recommend that you check the policy of that third party site.
16 or Under
We are concerned to protect the privacy of children aged 16 or under. If you are aged 16 or under‚ please get your parent/guardian’s permission beforehand whenever you provide us with personal information.

Transferring your information outside of Europe
As part of the services offered to you through this website, the information which you provide to us may be transferred to countries outside the European Union (“EU”). By way of example, this may happen if any of our servers are from time to time located in a country outside of the EU. These countries may not have similar data protection laws to the UK. By submitting your personal data, you’re agreeing to this transfer, storing or processing. If we transfer your information outside of the EU in this way, we will take steps to ensure that appropriate security measures are taken with the aim of ensuring that your privacy rights continue to be protected as outlined in this Policy.
If you use our services while you are outside the EU, your information may be transferred outside the EU in order to provide you with those services.

Our Company
University of Southampton, Building 60, University Road, Southampton, SO17 1BJ.
Email: cornerstone@soton.ac.uk

Review of this Policy
We keep this Policy under regular review. This Policy was last updated in August 2025.