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Turn your materials innovation into real-world opportunities.

Royce Catalyst expands the UK’s capacity for advanced materials entrepreneurship by bringing founders and researchers together in a structured, supported programme. By submitting a commercial feasibility project proposal, you’ll gain independent insight into the commercial potential of your technology, from applications and markets to risks, opportunities, and pathways to impact.

At the same time, you’ll play a leadership role in shaping the next generation of materials entrepreneurs.

What the team investigates

Guided by a supervisor and supported by the programme’s entrepreneurship education, the learner team matched with your advanced materials project will develop a reasoned view of its commercial feasibility.

Starting with the technology and questions you bring, the team may explore:

the problem or need the technology could address
potential applications and value propositions
relevant users, customers, partners and value chains
market structure, competition and barriers to adoption
commercial risks, evidence gaps and possible pathways forward

Customer discovery and primary market research sit at the heart of the work. The team will speak with relevant people across the market and value chain to gather evidence, test assumptions and compare possible directions.

At the outset, you’ll help the team understand the technology and frame the project clearly on Launch Day.

At the end of the programme, you’ll receive a commercial feasibility report and hear the team present its findings at Pitch Day. The evidence may reinforce your existing thinking, challenge an assumption or reveal a new possibility.

These educational outputs complement your own expertise but are not technical consultancy or formal due diligence.

Your role

As a founder or inventor, you provide the technology and project context while the learners remain responsible for their research, reasoning and conclusions. You are not expected to supervise or manage their work.

We ask you to attend Launch Day and Pitch Day in Manchester, meet your team online at five agreed points, share clear project information and respond promptly to reasonable questions. Where possible, you should also help identify useful starting points and contacts while giving learners the space to reach their own conclusions.

There is no programme fee. Your contribution is your time, insight and willingness to support independent exploration.

Project fit

The best projects for Royce Catalyst centre on an advanced materials technology around TRL 3–6, present open commercial questions and are sufficiently defined for a learner team to investigate.

Projects should have clear relevance to UK advanced materials innovation or industry and an industry or academic lead with the technical knowledge, responsibility and availability to support the team.

All work is non-confidential. You control what you share, and the project scope and market research boundaries are agreed with you at the outset.

How to apply

Tell us about your technology and the commercial questions you would like a learner team to investigate by submitting an online proposal.

We review proposals soon after they arrive and we may invite you to a short online conversation. After the deadline, we consider all proposals together, looking at their fit with Royce Catalyst and our ability to match them with a suitable team.

Places are limited, so submitting a proposal does not guarantee that your project will be selected.

Be part of the bigger picture

Royce Catalyst is more than a programme. It marks the start of a national effort to embed materials-centred entrepreneurship education, put technology translation into action, and ultimately support the UK’s advanced materials research base.

Whether you join as a student participant, founder, or supervisor, your involvement will help shape the culture, capacity, and community that drives material discoveries into real-world impact.

Questions? Contact us at catalyst@royce.ac.uk