Royce Catalyst

Royce Catalyst is an applied entrepreneurial learning programme for PhD, postdoctoral & early career researchers, as well as industry professionals. Working in teams on live materials projects from inventors, participants explore the commercial potential of advanced materials technologies while developing entrepreneurial mindsets and skills.

Our mission is clear: to accelerate the translation of advanced materials research into real-world impact, while equipping the next generation of researchers, innovators, and future founders with entrepreneurial skills relevant to advanced materials.

Royce Catalyst brings together three groups to strengthen the innovation ecosystem:

• Learners: researchers and professionals who want to learn how to test ideas and build entrepreneurial know-how.
• Inventors: with materials technologies in the early stages of commercial exploration.
• Supervisors: guiding teams as they apply their training and entrepreneurial tools.

Together, with our programme partner Alliance Manchester Business School, we are building a powerful ecosystem: real projects, independent insights, and a new wave of entrepreneurial talent for the UK’s materials innovation pipeline.

Advanced materials underpin the industries of the future, from energy storage and critical minerals to biomaterials, photonics, and sustainable manufacturing. Yet moving research from the lab into markets is complex.

Royce Catalyst provides a national learning platform to explore commercial feasibility, routes to market, and potential impact, delivered in a structured and supported way.

Through an intensive four-day taught lecture series held in Manchester, combined with real-world projects and expert supervision, participants gain the mindset and entrepreneurial tools needed to bridge the gap between research and real-world impact.

Inventors benefit from fresh, external perspectives on their technologies, while supervisors play a direct role in shaping the UK’s innovation culture.