The Materials for the future economy sprint at Innovate UK Business Connect

The vision for Materials for the future economy

The Innovate UK materials and manufacturing vision 2050 is a reimagination of the role that UK materials and manufacturing should have within our economy and society in a strongly net zero focused world.

The vision highlights Materials for the future economy as one of the five core areas of focus for the UK to become a recognised destination of choice for advanced low-carbon manufacturing.

The outputs were intended to:

• build detailed understanding of UK strengths and opportunities
• increase knowledge of weaknesses, threats, and barriers to sustainable growth
• identify priorities for innovation intervention
• provide feedback for refinement of the 2050 Vision

Understanding the UK’s strengths and opportunities

The Materials for future economy core area was divided into innovation strands for which there were individual workshops.

1. The development of materials for sustainable products:
   • Develop materials for the hydrogen economy
   • Develop materials and business models to support circularity
2. A broad adoption of new material applications:
   • Apply light-weight solutions including composites
   • Apply photonics solutions
3. A rapid discovery of new materials:
   • Computational materials (M4.0)
   • (Multi)functional materials
   • Advanced sensors for autonomy
   • Novel material processing

Across all the eight online workshops, 273 participants from across industry, RTOs and academia attended and contributed.

Strengths

Strengths were identified in:

• Materials discovery and lower TRL academic know-how and capability
• Aerospace sector/supply chain pulling through materials technology
• UK Catapult and RTO Network for scaleup
• Engineering design
• Research Council and Innovate UK funding
• Established legal processes for securing IP

Opportunities

Opportunities were identified in:

• Many automotive OEMs based in UK looking for materials solutions
• Testing/design/standards and qualification infrastructure
• Recycling batteries/rare earth materials
• Cross sector technology transfer
• Using academia for training – Centres for Doctoral Training (CDT)
• Better academia/industry collaboration
• Reward academia for scale-up
• Encourage Catapult Centres to work more with academia
• Horizon Europe
• Closer links between EPSRC and IUK
• Small catalyst fund (EPRSC/Innovate UK/Innovate UK Business Connect/Catapult)
• Leasing scheme for large capital equipment

Priority areas for innovation intervention

The attendees highlighted priority areas for innovation intervention across a range of themes.

Develop Materials for the Hydrogen Economy

A vision for hydrogen, identifying critical materials and minerals for hydrogen (e.g. carbon fibre), better interconnectivity in funding, more focus on standards and regulation, international collaboration, a technology development roadmap specific to materials, a critical materials strategy, capability mapping, testing infrastructure and a focus on skills.

Develop Materials and Business Models to Support Circularity

A focus on recycling infrastructure at scale, systems integration, prioritisation of certain materials, convening the full supply chain around circularity, and greater consideration of 2nd life applications where industrial designers may bring their skills to the fore.

Applying Lightweight Solutions including Composites

Pull-through funding, a focus on skills, development of joining technologies including disassembly, design for recycling, data including standardised templates for life cycle assessment (LCA), and focused activity on the recycling of composites.

Apply Photonics Solutions

Support for fabrication facilities and a well-defined IP strategy to facilitate scaling from lab-to-fab.

Computational Materials

International linkages (especially with the USA e.g. Google/Microsoft), the sharing of data between academia and industry e.g. transfer of code, access to computational resource and better access to short term (3 months) modelling.

(Multi) Functional Materials

Scale-up support, IP security, and facilities for certification and validation of multifunctional materials, potentially using the Analysis for Innovators (A4I) model.

Advanced Sensors for Autonomy

A study into the UK academia/industry landscape and a hub for SMEs developing sensors for other applications.

Novel Materials Processing

Quicker evolution of regulatory frameworks, to produce existing materials more sustainably and valorise waste streams.

Conclusions

Key conclusions from the Materials for the future economy sprint activity:

• A high priority is the funding and facilitation of academia to industry collaboration to exploit the opportunities of new materials and processes.
• UK’s leading academic strengths in materials are not being turned into UK opportunities is the main conclusion of this work. There are valleys between the valleys of death.
• Attendees anticipate that the forthcoming industrial strategy will provide the framework for long-term planning, structured funding support and better joining of the dots.

Thank you to everyone who contributed to the workshops to inform this sprint activity. The insights gathered are already being used to help inform the next iteration of the Materials and Manufacturing Vision 2050 and will be used to help inform future community building and funding activities. If you are interested in this area and want to know more, then please reach out to ajay.kapadia@iukbc.org.uk.