Zero-knowledge proofs (ZKP) are a highly relevant application area of mathematics and theoretical computer science and a thriving area of cryptographic research in the UK and worldwide. Zero-knowledge and probabilistically checkable proofs have long been recognized as groundbreaking theoretical contributions, with the 1993 and 2002 Gödel Prize and the 2012 Turing Award. Recently, ZKP has seen an incredible renaissance with further academic recognition in the 2021 Abel prize and strong industry interest, with whole companies, such as the Electric Coin Company and Starkware, basing their raison d’être on its ideas. As witnessed by the EU GDPR regulation and recent standardisation efforts, zero knowledge has numerous applications within privacy-preserving technologies to ensure privacy in a digital world.
This workshop united zero-knowledge researchers in the UK and Europe and facilitate community building, especially among PhD students and early career researchers. The content that was presented would be published online as a lasting resource. The ultimate objective of the workshop was to have a significant long-term effect on research in zero-knowledge proofs and privacy-enhancing techniques by encouraging connections and creating resources for researchers.
The workshop covered several topics within this field, including classical results, interactive oracle proofs, proof from symmetric primitives, group and pairing-based proof systems such as ZK-SNARKs, lattice-based proof systems, and real-world applications.
