Reimagining materials and manufacturing together
Now is the time to reimagine manufacturing together. The UK has clear potential to become a world-class destination of choice for advanced low-carbon manufacturing.
Materials and Manufacturing Vision 2050
The UK has clear potential to become a world-class destination of choice for advanced low-carbon manufacturing. Now is the time to reimagine materials and manufacturing together.
Materials and manufacturing play a vital role in the UK economy through driving innovation, exports, job creation, productivity and growth. These sectors must also adjust to meet climate change targets, adopt new technologies and adapt to changing customer demands.
Innovate UK’s 2050 vision document is a re-imagination of materials and manufacturing together. It’s a document that delves into the challenges and opportunities that lie in front of the UK materials and manufacturing sectors in the coming decades.
Expression of Interest now open
Innovate UK is now inviting expressions of interest from those looking to rapidly find innovative solutions to tangible materials and manufacturing challenges.
Find out more and apply
With more than 170 recent references analysed and more than 120 stakeholders consulted, this is one of the most comprehensive studies of its kind.
This document is a long-term view highlighting that:
- UK manufacturing faces urgent challenges such as climate, resilience and productivity
- UK manufacturing offers incredibly exciting opportunities and is a great career option
- UK has the talent and innovation infrastructure to realise its vision of being world-class
To support businesses and academia on this journey Innovate UK and its partners are funding various complementary programmes.
Each programme is designed to:
- Inspire – to improve awareness and expertise and to make the opportunity visible and compelling
- Involve – to bring relevant organisations and people together and to build aligned communities
- Invest – convene resources and to facilitate research, innovation and investment.
“Materials and manufacturing accounts for 61% of all business expenditure on UK R&D and in 2019 attracted 22% of all inward foreign direct investment in the UK economy”
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Have your say
We know that a vision of the future will not be exact and we invite you to challenge us where you think we are wrong. It’s not intended to be a prescriptive road map of activity but it will help us to shape our decisions on what to support and where to invest. We will be making regular updates to the Vision and we’d like your feedback and comments to help us do so. Use this form to challenge us, inform us, tell us how you would use the Vision within your organisation and let us know about changes that would make this document more useful for you.
High Value Manufacturing Catapult is a proud partner of this work, we encourage survey participation and look forward to working in partnership with Innovate UK on exploring and addressing the findings.
— Katherine Bennett, CEO, HVMC
Our strategic imperatives
Net zero and resource efficient
To understand and minimise the environmental impact across the full operation and whole product lifecycle.
Resilient and responsive
To mitigate risks from critical supply, national/global disruption and climate change therefore becoming increasingly resilient.
Technologically advanced and digital
To adopt digital and advanced technology to improve efficiency, visibility across supply chains and apply novel business models.
Our Experts
Related Opportunities
European Commission Plastics Related Funding & tender opportunities
Opens: 01/03/2023 Closes: 22/02/2024
Horizon Europe funding for reducing plastic pollution, pollutant monitoring, circular economy, and biodegradation validation. Various closing dates.
More Information
SSPP: Liquid food and beverages in refillable packaging
Opens: 18/09/2023 Closes: 25/10/2023
Up to £1.5m available to demonstrate a reuse or refill packaging system for liquid food and beverage products, at scale, in a retail chain.
More Information
Rapidly find innovative solutions to tangible materials and manufacturing challenges
Opens: 24/08/2023 Closes: 30/09/2023
Innovate UK is now inviting expressions of interest from those looking to rapidly find innovative solutions to tangible materials and manufacturing challenges.
More Information
Programmes related to Reimagining materials and manufacturing together
Resource Efficiency for Materials and Manufacturing (REforMM)
The programme aims for the UK to be a leader in resource efficiency with organisations understanding the environmental, social and economic impact of the full lifecycle and thriving from adoption of resource efficient solutions which are fundamental to UK and global Net Zero ambitions.
Sustainable bio-based Materials and Manufacture (SusBioMM)
The sustainable bio-based materials and manufacture (SusBioMM) programme seeks to address the challenge of developing innovations in sustainable and scalable biomanufacturing processes.