Known as the Faraday Challenge, the 4-year investment
round is a key part of the government’s Industrial
Strategy. It will deliver a coordinated programme of
competitions that will aim to boost both the research and
development of expertise in battery technology.
An overarching Faraday Challenge Advisory Board will be
established to ensure the coherence and impact of the
challenge. The board will be chaired by Professor Richard
Parry-Jones, a senior engineering leader with many
decades of senior automotive industry experience and
recently chaired the UK Automotive Council for 6 years.
At a speech hosted by the Resolution Foundation in
Birmingham, is expected to say on
the need for an Industrial Strategy:
At its heart is a recognition that in order for all our
citizens to be able to look forward with confidence to
a prosperous future, we need to plan to improve our
ability to earn that prosperity.
To enjoy a high and rising standard of living we must
plan to be more productive than in the past.
Economists have pointed to what they have called a
productivity puzzle in Britain. That we appear to
generate less value for our efforts than, say, people
in Germany or France. In other words, we have to work
longer to get the same rewards.
It’s not that we want – or need – people to work longer
hours. It’s that we need to ensure that we find and
seize opportunities to work more productively – as a
country, as cities and regions, as businesses and as
individuals. If we can do so, we can increase the
earning power of our country and our people.
We have great strengths. Our economy has been
extraordinarily good at creating jobs. When we look at
our closest neighbours, we can be truly proud of the
fact almost everyone of working age in this country is
in work and earning.
is expected to say on
the government’s approach:
Our strategy will create the conditions that boost
earning power throughout the country – its people,
places and companies.
If every part of Britain is to prosper in the future we
need to ensure that we have the right policies and
institutions in place to drive the productivity – which
is to say, the earning power – of the economy, and the
people and places that make it up.
I want to thank all of the organisations across the UK
for the formidable response to the consultation that we
have undertaken on our green paper Building our
Industrial Strategy. The response has been
extraordinary.
Over 1,900 written responses – full, thoughtful and
creative. From all parts of the United Kingdom; from
new start-ups to big businesses; from organisations as
diverse the Premier League to the Wellcome Trust and
the Women’s Engineering Society.
Later in the year we will respond formally to the
consultation with a white paper. But the shape of it is
already becoming clear.
One of the strengths of an industrial strategy is to be
able to bring together concerted effort on areas of
opportunity that have previously been in different
sectors, or which require joining forces between
entrepreneurs, scientists and researchers, industries,
and local and national government.
So as part of our Industrial Strategy Challenge Fund I
am today launching the Faraday Challenge, which will
put £246 million into research, innovation and scale-up
of battery technology.
The first element will be a competition led by the
Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council to
bring the best minds and facilities together to create
a Battery Institute.
The most promising research completed by the Institute
will be moved closer to the market through industrial
collaborations led by Innovate UK.
And the Advanced Propulsion Centre will work with the
automotive sector to identify the best proposition for
a new state-of-the-art open access National Battery
Manufacturing Development facility.
The work that we do through the Faraday Challenge will
– quite literally – power the automotive and energy
revolution where, already, the UK is leading the world.
The Faraday Challenge’s competitions are divided into 3
streams - research, innovation and scale-up - designed to
drive a step-change in translating the UK’s world-leading
research into market-ready technology that ensures
economic success for the UK:
- Research: To support world class research and
training in battery materials, technologies and
manufacturing processes, the Government has opened a £45m
competition, led by the Engineering and Physical Sciences
Research Council (EPSRC), to bring the best minds and
facilities together to create a virtual Battery
Institute. The successful consortium of universities will
be responsible for undertaking research looking to
address the key industrial challenges in this area.
- Innovation: The most promising research completed by
the Institute will be moved closer to the market through
collaborative research and development competitions, led
by Innovate UK. The initial competitions will build on
the best of current world-leading science already
happening in the UK and helping make the technology more
accessible for UK businesses.
- Scale-up: To further develop the real-world use and
application of battery technology the government has
opened a competition, led by the Advanced Propulsion
Centre, to identify the best proposition for a new
state-of-the-art open access National Battery
Manufacturing Development facility.
Today’s announcement follows a review, commissioned as
part of the Industrial Strategy green paper, by Sir Mark
Walport in which he identified areas where the UK had
strengths in battery technology and could benefit from
linkage through this challenge fund.
The Faraday Challenge forms 1 of 6 key challenge areas
that the government, together with business and academia,
has identified through its flagship Industrial Strategy
Challenge Fund (ISCF) as being one of the UK’s core
industrial challenges, where research and innovation can
help unlock markets and industries of the future in which
the UK can become world-leading.
Ruth McKernan, Innovate UK Chief Executive said:
By any scale, the Faraday Challenge is a game changing
investment in the UK and will make people around the
globe take notice of what the UK is doing in terms of
battery development for the automotive sector.
The competitions opening this week present huge
opportunities for UK businesses, helping to generate
further jobs and growth in the UK’s low carbon economy.
Professor Philip Nelson, Chief Executive of the
Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council
(EPSRC), said:
Batteries will form a cornerstone of a low carbon
economy, whether in cars, aircraft, consumer
electronics, district or grid storage. To deliver the
UK’s low carbon economy we must consolidate and grow
our capabilities in novel battery technology. EPSRC’s
previous research investments mean we are in a
world-leading position.
The Faraday Challenge is a new way of working. It will
bring together the best minds in the field, draw on
others from different disciplines, and link intimately
with industry, innovators and other funders, such as
InnovateUK, to ensure we maintain that our world
leading position and keep the pipeline of fundamental
science to innovation flowing.
Richard Parry-Jones, newly appointed Chair of the Faraday
Challenge Advisory Board said:
The power of the Faraday Challenge derives from the
joining-up of all three stages of research from the
brilliant research in the university base, through
innovation in commercial applications to scaling up for
production. It will focus our best minds on the
critical industrial challenges that are needed to
establish the UK as one of the world leaders in
advanced battery technologies and associated
manufacturing capability.
In April, the government announced £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.
Richard Scudamore, Premier League Executive Chairman,
welcomes the opportunity for business to work with
government to shape policy:
Even economically successful sectors could contribute
more to the UK’s economic growth in the right public
policy environment, especially as we approach Brexit.
Elite sport is one of the UK’s great international
success stories but its economic impact has often been
under-estimated. That is why the Premier League
welcomes the Industrial Strategy as an important
opportunity for enterprises like us to help shape
government policy.
Simon Gillespie, Chief Executive of the British Heart
Foundation (BHF) welcomes the government’s commitment to
a modern Industrial Strategy:
We are pleased to see the government recognising the
importance of scientific research as part of the
Industrial Strategy. This research has not only boosted
the UK economy but has also led to the development of
treatments and technologies that have transformed
millions of lives around the world.
Medical research charities play a particularly
important part in this success: the BHF funds more than
half the UK’s independent research into heart and
circulatory diseases. We look forward to continuing to
work with government to deliver an Industrial Strategy
that supports world-leading research that improves the
lives of patients across the UK and globally.
The Business Secretary will also be confirming today the
launch of the third Connected Autonomous Vehicles
research and development competition, with £25 million of
funding being made available to new projects.
For the first time the government is making funding
available to off-road driverless innovation, with
investments earmarked for cutting-edge projects that will
grow the commercial potential of off-road driverless
technology and develop technologies that will increase
productivity and improve mobility in a range of sectors
including construction, farming and mining.
Government has already invested more than £100 million of
research and development funding in over 50 connected and
autonomous vehicle projects across the country to help UK
businesses and Universities take advantage of the huge
commercial opportunities in this area.
