Smarter Manufacturing and cybersecurity are among areas to receive funding in the latest round of investment by the government’s Industrial Strategy Challenge Fund.
The fund is designed to bring together the UK’s research base with businesses, to address industry challenges and help the UK to take advantage of future market opportunities.
The fund is managed by UK Research and Innovation and is part of £4.7bn investment in R&D over four years under the government’s Industrial Strategy.
Under the Manufacturing Made Smarter challenge, UK manufacturers s will be able to bid for a share of a £30m R&D fund. The fund is intended to encourage the development and integration of industrial digital technologies, through a collaborative and cross-sector approach which is also expected to encourage the cooperation of small, medium and large scale companies throughout the UK supply chain. It will support the application of technologies such as data analytics, connected environments and the internet of things. Applications are open now.
The Digital Security by Design challenge is expected to bring together £117m industry investment – including from Microsoft – with £70m government funding over the next five years. It will develop technology such as a new and secure hardware prototype that can cope with cyber-attacks, to software protected from new vulnerabilities appearing online. Details of the funding rounds under the challenge, which will be open to academics, research institutions, start-ups, and small, medium and large businesses, will be announced later this year.
Under the Industrial Decarbonisation Challenge the government set out new financing proposals for projects ranging from nuclear power to carbon capture and storage. It also launched a consultation on the re-use of oil and gas infrastructure serving depleted reservoirs for carbon capture and storage.
Other challenge areas include Driving the Electric Revolution in transport, low cost nuclear power and sustainable plastic packaging.