Our Programmes

Royce is involved in a growing number of major collaboration programmes with the aim of leveraging the UK's infrastructure to tackle global challenges.

Collaborate to Innovate

These programmes bring together key stakeholders from across the materials community and government to stimulate and drive innovation that will lead to economic and societal benefits.

Many of these programmes create links between leading businesses, SMEs, Research and Technology Organisations (RTOs), local authorities and central government with goal of supporting the translation of research into new materials and technologies.

This collaborative model encourages a joined up ecosystem in materials innovation, providing a clear pipeline for the translation from fundamental research to technologies which can be scaled-up and integrated by industry.

We support projects at both national and regional scales in the UK to ensure our world leading facilities are being exploited by local innovation clusters while also providing impact at the national level.

Regional Initiatives

Royce is engaged in a number of regional economic development initiatives and Innovation Accelerators, providing access to our national facilities, materials research expertise and support infrastructure through the programmes. 

These initiatives support the growth of local materials innovation networks which will help to anchor skills growth and investment in regions across the UK, supporting the Government’s levelling-up agenda.

Our regional projects include Innovation Accelerators such as the Centre of Expertise in Advanced Materials (CEAMS) through which Royce is addressing commercial exploitation and scale-up challenges for sustainable materials, and playing more focused roles in initiatives such as Future Homes, which will see Royce work with businesses in Greater Manchester to develop low impact construction products.

We also collaborate with other Institutions and RTOs on projects to reinforce more focused research challenges in regional centres, such as supporting rapid access funding schemes for energy research delivered in collaboration with the Faraday Institution.

These programmes empower local innovators to harness support and facilities available through Royce and other partners in order to address supply chain gaps in the provision of materials and to help to attract private R&D investment for future technologies.

National Initiatives

National programmes supported by Royce represent major collaborative endeavours which run across multiple disciplines, institutions, and industries.

These projects stimulate research and innovation across entire sectoral landscapes with goals focused around unlocking funding to tackle the materials challenges constraining supply chains, bridging gaps across Technology Readiness Levels, and accelerating change in different sectors to support national agendas such as green manufacturing and process optimisation.  

Our national initiatives include membership of the Foundation Industries Sustainability Consortium (FISC), which is accelerating scale-up of the sustainable technologies urgently required by the Foundation Industries. While another project – the Defence Materials Center of Excellence (DMEx) – will research, create, and prototype new materials that can perform under harsh conditions with dozens of university and industry partners from across the UK, alongside the Defence Science and Technology Laboratory (dstl).

Our national programmes are helping to establish technology translation pathways throughout the UK’s innovation ecosystem, ensuring a joint up model for materials innovation which can deliver real value to national competitiveness in the many sectors reliant on materials innovation.

Roadmapping, Landscaping and Policy

Royce is leading a number of policy projects with the support of the community and government to develop a materials innovation strategy and to build research and innovation roadmaps against identified challenges in the UK. 

These projects have been established to provide a coherent approach across Government, industry and the wider materials technology community.

Royce roadmapping and landscaping activities are generating new research and reports to better understand technology gaps with the goal of stimulating new advanced materials research in the UK against a number of identified challenge areas.

Our policy work, including the National Materials Innovation Strategy,  will identify high-potential areas where materials innovation can make an impact in creating new and significant forms of value while addressing national priorities.

These policy and roadmapping projects are being undertaken to ensure the UK has a world-leading position in rapidly expanding materials markets, substantially enhancing the value of some of the largest UK-based industries and ensuring materials science researchers and innovators are supported.

Royce's collaborative model is crucial to developing an ecosystem which ensures the transfer of ground-breaking ideas into solutions for priority areas in the UK – from meeting our net zero commitments, to living longer and healthier lives.

Dr Ania Jolly | Head of Research and Business Engagement

Major Programmes

Learn more about our key collaboration projects

CEAMS

The Centre of Expertise in Advanced Materials and Sustainability (CEAMS) is a state-of-the-art centre that will target the commercialisation of materials-related sustainable developments. Through its collaborative network of partners, CEAMS is addressing grand challenges by facilitating access to world-leading research expertise and a strong community of commercial players.

FISC

The Foundation Industries Sustainability Consortium (FISC) is leading the EconoMISER programme to develop a network of scale-up centres - accelerating innovation in low carbon, resource efficient and sustainable solutions for the foundation industries.

MATCelerate Zero

This project is a partnership between Royce, a number of world-leading materials research universities and global companies to develop a pipeline of commercial opportunities delivering competitive advantage and climate resilience.

SMI Hub

The Sustainable Materials Innovation Hub (SMI Hub) works with businesses to create sustainability solutions for plastics use and end of life. Established in 2020 by Royce, the SMI Hub is able to perform materials assessments and provide concrete evaluation for products, packaging and components to inform more sustainable choices.

NTPMI

The National Technical Platform for Materials Innovation (NTPMI) is a four year programme which aims to empower, share expertise and best practice, and break down silos across the Research Technical Professional (RTP) community in materials innovation and associated manufacturing technology.

Roadmapping and Landscaping

Royce, with the support of the community, builds research roadmaps against national materials challenges, clarifying the technology gaps and interfaces which need to be addressed, to support the development of a national research business case.

Digital Materials Foundry

The Digital Materials Foundry is a new initiative established by Royce to support the digital transformation of materials innovation. The Foundry is leveraging open-access experimental databases, machine-learning code for property prediction and language models tailored for the materials domain to accelerate translation.

DMEx

The Defence Materials Centre of Excellence (DMEx) is bringing together world-leading researchers from Dstl, industry, research technology organisations and academia to develop the next generation of advanced materials systems for the Defence of the UK.

Hydrogen Accelerator

The Royce Hydrogen Accelerator has been designed to tackle materials challenges which are constraining the hydrogen supply chain. It will bridge the gap in the existing innovation landscape between lab-based materials research and proven technologies executed at scale. It will also coalesce a network of key voices from government, industry, academia and investment.

MATcelerate Health

MATcelerate Health is catalysing a paradigm shift in how medical material innovations are discovered and brought to market. Bioelectronics, bone replacement and wound care are just a few of the high-impact applications that will be assessed through the centre to address some of healthcare’s biggest challenges.

Tata Steel Innovation Centre

The Tata Steel Centre for Innovation in Advanced Materials is facilitating work between world-class scientists and a rich partner network to create sustainable, breakthrough, market-ready applications while exploring medical, 2D and second-life materials with an emphasis on reuse and recycling.

Innovation Strategy

Royce is promoting and supporting the development of a national strategy for materials innovation which is needed to deliver a coherent approach across Government, industry and the wider materials technology community.

Materials 4.0 CDT

The new Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council (EPSRC) Centre for Doctoral Training in Developing National Capability for Materials 4.0 with the Henry Royce Institute will train over 70 researchers with the knowledge, understanding and skills required to ensure national capability in Materials 4.0.
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