The Henry Royce Institute (Royce), the UK’s National Institute for advanced materials research and innovation, has awarded £1.35 million for collaborative metamaterials sprint projects.
Awarded as part of a special extension of Round 5 of the well-established Royce Industrial Collaboration Programme (ICP), the funding will accelerate the scale-up of metamaterials research, enabling collaboration partnerships between universities, research and technology organisations (RTOs) and industry. The programme ensures that cutting-edge technologies and scientific advancements in the field are delivering benefit to society as a whole.
A total of 16 projects has been funded as part of this ICP call. These projects will demonstrate how metamaterials can deliver against key national priorities, including those laid out in the National Materials Innovation Strategy.
Prof David Knowles, Royce CEO, said:
“Royce’s Industrial Collaboration Programme is built to accelerate the innovation process from discovery to application, and metamaterials present an exciting opportunity to develop transformative materials platforms across advanced manufacturing. By supporting these collaborative sprint projects, we are enabling the rapid development and scale-up of technologies that could re-shape sectors including energy, healthcare and digital communications.
“These projects demonstrate the strength of the UK’s materials innovation ecosystem and its ability to deliver solutions that align with the ambitions of the National Materials Innovation Strategy helping position the UK at the forefront of next-generation materials innovation.”
What are Metamaterials?
The definition of metamaterials that applicants had to meet is:
“A metamaterial is a 3D structure with a response or function due to the collective effect of meta-atom elements that is not possible to achieve conventionally with any individual constituent material. A metasurface is a 2D version of a metamaterial where the structural elements are confined to a 2D plane. The response/function of a metamaterial results from the ensemble effects of designed and engineered meta-atom elements.”
Metamaterials-enabled technologies can address challenges across a wide range of sectors, including:
- Aerospace (e.g. managing extreme thermal conditions)
- ICT (e.g. compact optics for augmented reality)
- Energy (e.g. advanced solar panels and wireless charging)
- Healthcare (e.g. biosensors and anti-microbial materials)
- Defence & security
This funding builds on the momentum from UK Research and Innovation’s (UKRI) investment into fundamental research and community development for metamaterials in the last year, including the £19.6 million MetaHUB, based at the University of Exeter, and the UKRI UK Metamaterials Network.
Professor Alastair Hibbins, joint-lead of the UK Metamaterials Network, commented:
These awarded projects demonstrate how far the metamaterials community has progressed towards meaningful industrial exploitation. The winners exemplify the kind of collaboration we now need – where strong fundamental research is tightly coupled to manufacturability, scalability and real industrial challenges. Through this collaboration between the Henry Royce Institute and the UK Metamaterials Network, we look forward to the impact, commercialisation and real‑world exploitation that will emerge from these sprint projects.
