Two £10 million manufacturing research Hubs that will address major, long-term challenges facing the UK’s manufacturing industries, and capture opportunities from emerging research were announced by Universities and Science Minister Jo Johnson.
The Hubs will be based at the University of Southampton and Brunel University in London and will work in collaboration with academics at universities across the country and are funded for the next seven years by the Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council (EPSRC). Each will have a programme of innovative research in the engineering and physical sciences, related to the challenges in commercialising early stage research.
Minister for Science, Jo Johnson said: “With this £92 million investment, these new manufacturing hubs will develop the next generation of high tech products in communications and healthcare, as well as tackle industry challenges such as rising materials costs.”
Professor Philip Nelson, EPSRC’s Chief Executive, said: “These two new manufacturing Hubs will help manufacturing industries respond to the opportunities and drivers in the sector. They also build upon EPSRC’s previous investment successes of Innovative Manufacturing Research Centres and EPSRC Centres for Innovative Manufacturing.”
The first two Hubs are:
Future Liquid Metal Engineering led by Professor Zhongyun Fan at Brunel University.
The core Hub activities will be based at Brunel strongly supported by the complementary expertise of academic spokes at Oxford, Leeds, Manchester and Imperial College London with over £45 million investment from industrial partners in addition to the £10 million invested by EPSRC.
Impact of the Hub will initially be in the UK automotive industry and its supply chain and then the wider transportation industry. The Hub will be a technology proving ground, and will provide shortened lead time from technology concept to industrial production, advanced manufacturing technologies to provide technological advantages over competitors, recycling-friendly advanced metallic materials with reduced cost and improved sustainability due to reduced CO2 emissions, conservation of natural resources and consequently reduced environmental impact.
High Value Photonic Manufacturing led by Professor Sir David Payne at the University of Southampton.
The Future High Value Photonics Manufacturing Hub will underpin growth of the UK’s £10 billion photonics industry and support the £600 billion of UK manufacturing output that depends on photonics. It will do this by being the go-to place for the UK photonics industry who are interested in improving existing manufacturing processes for production of photonics components, supply of prototype components and sub-systems to their designs and a one-stop-shop for trialling user ideas and developing new manufacturing processes
For further information please contact the EPSRC Press Office on 01793 444 404 or email pressoffice@epsrc.ac.uk
