Manchester’s Royce Institute to get £126m Government boost

The Government is to invest £229m in the development of advanced materials and a new centre of excellence for the life and physical sciences as part of its modern Industrial Strategy.

Included in the investment is £126m in grants for the Sir Henry Royce Institute for Advanced Materials, supporting the creation of a world-leading research centre at the University of Manchester, with satellite centres at the Universities of Sheffield, Leeds, Liverpool, Cambridge, Oxford and Imperial College.

Set to open in 2019, the £150m Royce Institute will encompass nine key areas of materials research including graphene and proposed research areas will be grouped into four themes – energy, engineering, functional and soft materials.

Located at the heart of the University of Manchester’s Engineering Campus, the 16,000 sq m building will house world-leading materials scientists, equipment and collaborative space for industrial and academic engagement.

It is believed that, at 46 metres high, the Royce building will be the tallest on the University of Manchester campus.

It will be located next to the Alan Turing Building on Upper Brook Street, in close proximity to the Schools of Physics and Chemistry, as well as the £61m National Graphene Institute (NGI) and the £350m Manchester Engineering Campus Development (MECD), which is currently under construction.

The government also announced a £103m investment in a new national centre of excellence for life and physical sciences at the Rosalind Franklin Institute in Oxford.

Business and Energy Secretary Greg Clark said: “Research and development has a proven track record of making our economy more competitive and creating new products, services and better ways of doing business. For these reasons, we’ve placed the UK’s strengths in science, research and innovation at the core of our modern Industrial Strategy.”

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