Royce employs a dedicated team of Application Scientists to support Research & Development projects in collaboration with SME and industry partners.
Our Application Scientists assist with project scoping and delivery across Royce facilities or offer tailored consultancy for new product development, testing, or innovation initiatives. They provide hands-on, flexible support for technical projects and bring expertise across all Royce Research Areas.
Vikesh Kumar, Application Scientist in Materials and Coatings for Extreme Environments at Royce at Cranfield, has written about his work with industry and the challenges faced by materials scientists working with hydrogen.
He writes:
In a typical position you would work towards understanding scientific fundamentals. But in the Henry Royce Institute, we address the typical problems industries face. And this is the fascinating part about being an application scientist.
We do still need to understand the fundamentals, so that we can help our industry partner to understand the research we do with them. But we progress the research from lab skills to higher technology readiness levels: from laboratory to market.
Vikesh’s role involves taking ownership of projects end-to-end, from experimental design and data analysis, to industry-focused reporting and working closely with partners through problem-driven collaboration that aligns academic expertise directly with industrial decision-making and technology readiness goals.
The blog highlights two consecutive Industrial Collaboration Programme projects with Rolls-Royce. For these projects, continuity of technical leadership enabled robust insights into how microstructure, surface condition and engineered oxide layers influence hydrogen ingress in stainless steels for aviation applications for safer, faster hydrogen adoption across aerospace and related industries.
Read the full version of Vikesh’s blog here.
Find out more about Application Scientists at Royce here.
