Professor Dame Ottoline Leyser CEO of UK Research and Innovation opened the new Henry Royce Institute Hub Building at the University of Manchester, on 7th September.
Professor Dame Nancy Rothwell, President and Vice-Chancellor at The University of Manchester and Dame Julia King, the Baroness Brown of Cambridge and Chair of the Henry Royce Institute, welcomed guests to Royce’s flagship building at the university and set out the capabilities of the new UK centre for materials research and meeting place for the advanced materials community.
Following a tour of the building’s laboratories and meeting researchers, Dame Ottoline unveiled a plaque marking the official opening of the Royce Hub Building, which will be the hub to 400 researchers, PhD Students and professional services staff driving research and innovation in advanced materials.
The event also saw an important keynote video message from The Rt Hon Kwasi Kwarteng MP, Secretary of State for Business Energy and Industrial Strategy, who highlighted the importance of Government investment in innovation and technology translation. The Business Secretary noted that Advanced Materials & Manufacturing is a key technology family of “UK strength and opportunity”, as highlighted in the Government’s recently announced UK Innovation Strategy: Leading the future by creating it.
The building hosts £45 million of new state-of-the-art equipment alongside existing facilities in Manchester for biomedical materials, metals processing, digital fabrication, and sustainable materials research, including the new Sustainable Materials Innovation Hub part-funded by the European Regional Development Fund (ERDF). In addition, there is a variety of collaboration spaces for industry engagement, helping to accelerate the development and commercialisation of advanced materials.
During the event, Carol Holden OBE, from the Northern Automotive Alliance presented on the Royce role in industrial innovation and Mia Maric, winner of IOM3 Young Person’s Lecture Competition talked about her Manchester PhD experience and the benefits of using Royce’s equipment and expertise in her research.
Royce’s presence in Manchester extends well beyond this new building it also has substantial space and equipment in the Alan Turing Building, together with facilities in the National Graphene Institute, Manchester Institute of Biotechnology and at the Dalton Nuclear Institute. It will soon also extend its reach into the new Manchester Engineering Campus Development – the MECD – which is the single largest home for engineering in any UK university.
