EPSRC Research to Advance UK Recycling Capabilities

Funding for research to accelerate UK recycling capabilities, with a focus on hard-to-recycle products.

The Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council (EPSRC) has launched this opportunity in partnership with the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Defra) to support up to nine research projects to accelerate UK recycling capabilities.

Projects must involve relevant stakeholders and progress the development of more energy-efficient, scalable, environmentally sustainable, and economically viable recycling and separation technologies and the systems needed to support them. EPSRC particularly welcome applications that focus on hard to recycle products.

The opportunity is open to any project addressing a research challenge related to advancing any section of the recycling system in the UK from collection, through sorting and separation, to material recycling, but it is not expected that individual projects will address all of the end to end system. The funders are looking to support research into:

• Novel technologies to tackle complex or hard to recycle products, components, and materials that aim to integrate into the current or future UK recycling landscape.
• Significant or disruptive development of existing technologies to create a step change in energy-efficiency, scalability, and economic viability in the recycling sector.

EPSRC would particularly welcome proposals addressing the following priority areas, where significant challenges remain:

• Methods to recycle complex or hard to recycle materials for example: waste electrical and electronic equipment, contaminated waste (for example personal hygiene, care products, and medical waste), multilayer materials, composite materials.
• Advancements in separation and sorting of mixed waste streams for example: mixed textile waste and residual waste.
• The recycling of high value materials, such as rare earth elements where present in products in insufficient volume to make recovery economically viable currently.

Projects should:

• Be adventurous and ambitious with the potential for high impact.
• Address real-world challenges.
• Prioritise environmental sustainability throughout the programme and across the life cycle of the recycling process, to support a more sustainable recycling sector and a greener UK economy.
• Consider the whole system (technological, economic, social, cultural, and environmental) within which the proposed research outputs would sit. See systems approach section below.

Projects must demonstrably lie primarily within EPSRC’s remit. However, involvement of researchers from other disciplines (including those from other UKRI councils) is welcome and encouraged.

Projects must not start before 1 April 2026. The duration of this award is a maximum 36 months.