Research Funding to Deliver the Next Generation of Manufacturing Technologies
The Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council (EPSRC) is providing funding to deliver the next generation of innovative and disruptive manufacturing technologies, processes, products, and systems to enable the manufacture of the products needed to drive a productive, resilient, prosperous, and sustainable UK future.
The ambition is to support the development of technologies, products and processes that facilitate the creation of new products that cannot currently be manufactured at scale but will be needed for the UK to address future challenges, such as the transition to net zero. Applications are sought that focus on the evolution of manufacturing technologies and processes, to grow and transform manufacturing sectors in areas where the UK can lead and be more productive.
The next generation technologies, processes, products, and systems developed are expected to be more sustainable than the current state-of-the-art. The aim is to fund projects focused on the innovative development of technologies that build upon existing manufacturing systems to deliver a step change in functionality (as opposed to entirely novel emerging manufacturing processes). This could include:
- Innovation to reimagine existing technological solutions to solve new or different manufacturing problems.
- Enabling the manufacture of products that can currently be manufactured, but the product or system will need to change to meet the challenges of the future, such that the existing manufacturing process will no longer be suitable. For example, new manufacturing processes to enable production of wind turbine blades of the future designed for a longer use life and end of life recycling.
- Evolving processes and technologies to utilise recycled feedstocks (products, or materials produced by recycling of waste, which can be used as resources for the manufacture of new products).
- Evolution of an existing manufacturing technology in order to produce products that don’t currently exist (for example, the new products that will be needed to facilitate the green revolution) or products that cannot yet be manufactured at sufficient scale for them to be adopted.
Proposals are expected to prioritise environmental sustainability including resource efficiency, waste reduction and lower emissions, across the life cycle of both the manufacturing technology and the product to be manufactured to support a more sustainable manufacturing sector and a greener UK economy.
Standard EPSRC eligibility rules apply. Applicants must be based at a UK research organisation eligible for EPSRC funding. Any individual can only appear on one application overall as project lead or project co-lead.
A total of £9.5 million is available through the opportunity. The full economic cost (FEC) of an individual project can be up to £1.7 million. Funding will be issued at 80% FEC, and projects can be up to 36 months in duration.
Applications should be submitted by the 23 October 2024 (16:00) deadline.
(This Bulletin article was the subject of a ResearchConnect news alert.)