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National Materials Innovation Strategy
Introduction
The National Materials Innovation Strategy outlines a comprehensive consultation, structure and plan to drive UK economic growth through advanced materials innovation.
Facilitated by Royce, this strategy seeks to leverage the UK’s world-class expertise in materials science to address critical challenges such as sustainability, energy efficiency, and healthcare.
By fostering collaboration between industry, academia, and government, the strategy aims to accelerate the path from research to commercialisation, grow productivity, enhance national resilience, and create highly skilled employment opportunities.
Key focus areas include energy solutions, future healthcare, structural innovations, advanced surface technologies, next-generation electronics, and sustainable consumer products. This initiative positions the UK as a global leader in materials innovation, paving the way for a prosperous and sustainable future, underpinning UK’s diverse industries growth.
The strategy outlines six Opportunity Themes designed to drive high-impact innovation across the UK economy, fostering increased productivity, job creation and prosperity.
What sets this strategy apart however is its focus on transformative enabling technologies and approaches that will revolutionise the delivery and application of materials innovations across multiple sectors. These are captured in the Strategy’s “Cross-cutting” Themes, which provide the essential foundations for sustainable growth.
Among these, Materials 4.0 and Sustainability stand out as truly game-changing, cross-cutting priorities with the potential to reshape the landscape of materials innovation. Their successful implementation will require an agile, systems-thinking approach that integrates diverse technologies and methodologies. This holistic perspective will enable a significant step change in how materials innovation is delivered, adopted, and scaled for impact.
Strategy Goals
The main goals of the National Materials Innovation Strategy are:
- Accelerate Innovation: Create pathways to speed up the journey from discovery to deployment, breaking down silos between industry sectors and scientific disciplines.
- Economic Growth: Drive economic growth by leveraging materials innovation, contributing significantly to the UK economy and creating high-skill employment opportunities.
- Sustainability and Resilience: Address the necessity of sustainability and resilience in new discovery and innovation processes, contributing to a net zero economy.
- Tackle Major Challenges: Use materials innovation to address pressing challenges such as decarbonising energy systems, revolutionising healthcare, and boosting the circular economy.
- Leverage Existing Strengths: Utilising the UK’s world-class research and development capabilities, its regulatory environment, and highly skilled workforce to drive impactful materials innovation.
- Create a Cohesive Framework: Develop a consistent and cohesive framework to address common opportunities and challenges across various sectors.
- Support High-Value Industries and Attract Investment: Focus on high-potential investment opportunities and support high-value industries through demonstrable, high impact materials innovation.
- Promote Collaboration: Foster collaboration among industry leaders, academic specialists, government experts, and other stakeholders to drive materials innovation.
- Global Leadership: Strengthen and extend the UK’s global leadership in materials science and innovation.
These goals aim to transform materials potential into materials progress, ensuring the UK remains a global leader in materials innovation.
Join the Strategy Network
Royce would like to invite anyone interested in contributing to the future of a responsive and valuable materials innovation ecosystem to join its strategy network. Those with wide-ranging industry leadership experience will be particularly welcome.
Interested in contributing to the implementation of the National Materials Innovation Strategy? Register your interest today by emailing: info@royce.ac.uk
Documents
National Materials Innovation Strategy Documents:
Interim Report Documents:
Framework/Stage 1 Documents:
Key Contributors
The key contributors include:
Materials Leadership Group: Led by Allan Cook CBE and Professor David Knowles, this group comprises national leaders in materials innovation.
Henry Royce Institute: Initiated the development of the strategy and coordinated the collaboration among various stakeholders.
Industry Leaders: Over 270 different businesses, including many of the UK’s major corporates making or using materials within their businesses.
Academic Experts: Contributions from world-class universities and research organisations.
Government Experts: Involvement from policymakers and government bodies.
Non-Governmental Bodies: Participation from various non-governmental organisations.
Over 2,000 Experts: Engaged through workshops and consultations to provide insights on market opportunities, innovation solutions, and investment needs.
These contributors worked together to identify key materials innovation opportunities and develop a cohesive strategy to drive economic growth and address pressing societal challenges.
Materials Leadership Group
The Materials Leadership Group is made up of senior representatives spanning a range of industry and key research organisations. The Leadership Group champions outputs and drives implementation plans, forming an alliance for materials that will provide opportunities to collaborate, to work with Government and above all, to grow the materials innovation pipeline.