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Business Secretary has today announced the
universities that will lead pioneering research into next
generation of battery technology
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The flagship Faraday Battery Institute will bring
together the best minds from seven founding partner
universities and industry to make UK global leader in battery
research and technology
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It will be made up of Imperial College London,
Newcastle University, University College London, University of
Cambridge, University of Oxford and University of
Warwick
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The Faraday Battery Institute, with £65m from the
Industrial Strategy Challenge Fund, is part of Government’s
£246 million investment in battery technology through the
Industrial Strategy
Business Secretary has today (Tuesday 2 October)
announced the consortium of UK universities that will form the
Faraday Battery Institute, a new £65 million research institute
responsible for building the UK’s status as a global leader in
battery research and technology.
The Institute will bring together the expertise and insight from
its seven founding partner universities, industry partners and
other academic institutions to accelerate fundamental research to
develop battery technologies. Ensuring the UK is well
placed to take advantage of the future economic opportunities
from emerging technology.
The universities forming the institute are, Imperial College
London, Newcastle University, University College London,
University of Cambridge, University of Oxford and University of
Warwick.
Announcing this major investment in the UK’s research base
said:
“Through the Faraday Research
Challenge we are cementing our position as the ‘go-to’
destination for battery technology so we can exploit the global
transition to a low carbon economy.
“The Faraday Battery, Institute will have a critical role in
fostering innovative research collaboration between our
world-leading universities and world-beating businesses to make
this technology more accessible and more affordable.
“We have huge expertise in this area already and the Faraday
Battery Institute collaboration between our seven founding
universities provides a truly unique opportunity for us to bring
together our expertise and an effort in this area behind a common
set of strategic goals to ensure the UK exploits the jobs and
business opportunities.”
The Business Secretary confirmed in
July that the Government would be making an investment
of £246 million, over four years, in the Faraday Research
Challenge to ensure the UK builds on its strengths and leads the
world in the design, development and manufacture of electric
batteries.
The Faraday Research Challenge is divided into three streams -
research, innovation and scale-up which is designed to drive a
step-change in transforming the UK’s world-leading research into
market-ready technologies that ensures economic success for the
UK.
The Faraday Research Challenge is just one of six areas
that the government, together with business and academia,
identified through its flagship Industrial Strategy
Challenge Fund (ISCF) as being one of the UK’s core
industrial challenges and opportunities, where research and
innovation can help unlock markets and industries of the future
in which the UK can become world-leading.
As part of cementing the UK as a global leader in autonomous and
battery vehicles, the Government will unveil shortly the winners
of its first £55m Connected and Autonomous Vehicles (CAV) testing
infrastructure competition.
This follows the Government opening its £100m CAV test bed
competition in April, inviting proposals for how to create a
cluster of excellence in driverless car testing, along the M40
corridor between Coventry and London, to accelerate the
development of this technology, grow intellectual capital and
attract overseas investment in the UK.
ENDS
Notes to Editors
Government announced in April its first £1 billion of investment
through the fund in cutting-edge technologies to create jobs and
raise living standards. Other areas receiving Government support
through the ISCF in 2017 to 2018 include cutting edge healthcare
and medicine, robotics and artificial intelligence, and satellite
and space technology.
