The Henry Royce Institute is calling on organisations across the advanced ceramics sector to contribute to the development of a new UK Advanced Ceramics Roadmap, helping to identify the technologies, capabilities and priorities that will shape the sector over the next five years.
Advanced ceramics, encompassing technical ceramics and refractories, are critical enabling materials across manufacturing, energy, digital technologies, mobility, healthcare and defence.
Recognised as a key technology within the UK’s National Materials Innovation Strategy, they play an important role in strengthening UK industrial capability, resilience and competitiveness.
Earlier this year, Royce announced plans to develop a strategic UK roadmap for advanced ceramics. The initiative will establish a clearer, evidence-based picture of the UK advanced ceramics landscape, identify critical gaps in capability, infrastructure and coordination, and set priorities for future development.
The roadmap will also look at how the UK can better connect research, technology development and scale-up, strengthen supply chains and focus future activity and investment where they can have the greatest impact.
Industry insight
Royce is now inviting organisations that develop, manufacture or use advanced ceramics to help shape the roadmap by taking part in a programme of stakeholder engagement, including a two-hour online workshop planned for late November.
The workshops will bring together expertise across the advanced ceramics community to:
- identify and prioritise technologies for which focused support could make the greatest difference over the next five years
- map areas of existing UK strength
- identify capability and supply chain gaps
- explore opportunities to strengthen collaboration across industry, academia and government
- help develop practical recommendations to support the sector’s future growth and competitiveness.
Industry participation will be particularly important. The roadmap is intended to reflect the diversity of the UK’s advanced ceramics sector, ensuring that future priorities are informed by the organisations that develop, produce and deploy these materials.
National capability
The UK has significant strengths across parts of the advanced ceramics supply chain, but there are also challenges in commercialising intellectual property, scaling innovation and building resilient domestic supply chains. The roadmap aims to focus national attention on high-impact opportunities.
The initiative is being led by Royce and overseen by a dedicated Steering Group, chaired by Prof. Laura Cohen, former British Ceramic Confederation (BCC) Chief Executive, with Rob Flello, Chief Executive Officer of the renamed Ceramics UK, as a core member.
The roadmap is currently scheduled for publication in April 2027.
Get involved
If your organisation develops, manufactures or uses advanced ceramics, we want to hear from you.
This is an opportunity to bring your organisation’s experience and priorities directly into the development of a national roadmap and to help shape the future direction of the UK advanced ceramics sector.
ScotChem, Urban Foresight, the Institute for Manufacturing (IfM) and Perspective Economics are the appointed contractors responsible for delivering the roadmap.
To register your interest in the workshops or to find out more, contact info@royce.ac.uk
