The Treasury has today announced it is to assign an extra £780m of funding to the UK’s Catapult Centres as it seeks to fast-track the R&D efforts required to support the government’s industrial and clean growth strategies. Speaking on a visit to the Manufacturing Technology Centre in Coventry, Chancellor Philip Hammond said the new five year funding settlement would allow the Catapult Centres to expand and help accelerate the development of a raft of innovative new technologies. The new innovation funding follows the announcement last month of £180m of new funding for R&D centres in the north east, including the Offshore Renewable Energy Catapult. Hammond said today’s announcement took the total of new innovation funding to almost £1bn. The move effectively secures the future of the Catapult centres into the next parliament and will enable support for a wide range of R&D projects, including many that are focused on clean technologies. For example, the Manufacturing Technology Centre – which has today been awarded £270m of new funding – is working on a series of projects to advance 3D Printing, which has been widely tipped to drastically improve resource efficiency across the sector.
Business Green 10th Aug 2018 read more »
