Manufacturing research hubs for a sustainable future two: full stage is sponsored by Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council (EPSRC). This opportunity aimed to establish large-scale, multidisciplinary research hubs in the UK focused on manufacturing, environmental sustainability, and net zero. Projects should address major, long-term challenges facing manufacturing industries.

Manufacturing research hubs for a sustainable future two: full stage – UKRI Funding opportunity: Manufacturing research hubs for a sustainable future two: full stage Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council (EPSRC) Award range: £10,000,000 - £11,000,000 11 July 2023 9:00am UK time 26 September 2023 4:00pm UK time Last updated: 20 September 2023 - see all updates Apply for funding to establish a large-scale, multidisciplinary research hub in support of manufacturing, environmental sustainability and net zero.

You must be based at a UK research organisation eligible for EPSRC funding. Projects should address major, long-term challenges facing manufacturing industries. We will fund up to five projects.

The full economic cost (FEC) of your project can be up to £13. 75 million. We will fund 80% of the FEC.

Funding for each project will be awarded over seven years. Before applying for funding, check the following: the EPSRC eligibility guidance for applicants the eligibility of your organisation your eligibility as an individual This is the second stage of this opportunity. You may only submit a full proposal if you have been invited by EPSRC, after submitting a successful application at the outline stage.

We are committed to achieving equality of opportunity for all funding applicants. We encourage applications from a diverse range of researchers. We support people to work in a way that suits their personal circumstances.

This includes: support for people with caring responsibilities alternative working patterns Find out more about equality, diversity and inclusion (EDI) at UK Research and Innovation (UKRI). As leaders in the community, hubs will be expected to embed EDI in all their activities throughout the lifetime of the hub.

If funded, this will include identifying the specific EDI challenges and barriers in their own environment and developing a strategy to address these, with reference to our published expectations for EDI . Hubs must ensure that they request appropriate resources to develop and deliver their EDI strategy effectively. This must include at least one costed staff post with responsibility for EDI (the hub EDI lead).

Manufacturing research hubs for a sustainable future two will deliver a programme of innovative research in the engineering and physical sciences, related to the challenges in commercialising early-stage research and manufacturing. The hubs will feature high quality, multidisciplinary research, strong engagement with relevant manufacturing industries, and will take a leadership role in their national network.

In particular they will demonstrate a cross-cutting and embedded approach to environmental sustainability, and promote active equality, diversity and inclusion action planning and delivery.

Manufacturing research hubs for a sustainable future two will complement and refresh our existing portfolio of future manufacturing research hubs and the first round of manufacturing research hubs for a sustainable future , and contribute to delivering our strategic delivery plan .

As such, you must clearly demonstrate in your application how your proposed hub will contribute to at least one of our following priorities: artificial intelligence, digitalisation and data: driving value and security transforming health and healthcare physical and mathematical sciences powerhouse frontiers in engineering and technology Hubs are expected to deliver: high quality, multidisciplinary research a strong ethos of skills development for staff efficient management of hub operations a clear path to realising impact Hubs will be leaders within the landscape, driving forward the national manufacturing research agenda in their area and connecting with other players in the community, including users, policymakers, and other public investments (for example Catapults, other hubs and EPSRC investments).

The hub and spoke model will be used, with the hub and spokes working cooperatively towards achieving the overall vision. The lead institution is responsible for the oversight, core management and running of the hub, and the role of the surrounding academic or industrial spokes in different parts of the UK is to input specific expertise in areas that complement those from the lead institution.

Grant funding may be used for spoke activities provided the spoke meets our organisational eligibility requirements . The hub is expected to deliver added value (be more than the sum of its parts) by demonstrating strong connectivity between all hub partners and offering additional facilities, training and development than what is already provided by individual institutions.

Hub partnerships and impact should span all scales, building on the successes of previous similar investments to deliver impact in regional economies while also playing a national role in an international context.

In line with UK Research and Innovation (UKRI)’s objective to build world class places through research and innovation, you should bring together the right people and organisations from places across the UK, to tackle the challenges relevant to your chosen research area and relevant places.

You should demonstrate in your application how your hub: aligns with the strengths and needs of places delivers positive outcomes for specific places in the UK aligns with and supports industrial and civic ambitions or priorities supports local and regional specialisation and innovation Funding opportunity objectives deliver a programme of high quality, multidisciplinary research related to the challenges in commercialising early-stage research and manufacturing create strategic advantage and drive forward the national manufacturing research agenda in a particular area, as leaders within the landscape centre and embed environmental sustainability throughout hub aims, objectives, operations and research outcomes, considering the context of each hub’s specific research area engage with diverse and relevant partners to ensure that research is co-created and co-delivered with users embed equality, diversity and inclusion (EDI) within hub operations and activities by developing and delivering an EDI action plan, led by the hub EDI lead, which takes into account the specific EDI context and challenges within the hub’s research area and community This opportunity is to support innovative research programmes in engineering and the physical sciences, related to the challenges in commercialising early-stage research within manufacturing.

The hub research programmes should: draw on advances in underlying science and technology focus on the design and development of new and existing manufacturing processes, systems and networks explicitly consider the pathway to manufacture, including production scale up and integration within the wider industrial system You will need to articulate the hub’s strategy at each stage of the value chain: discovery, understand, integrate or adapt, and demonstration and deploy.

We welcome applications focusing on diverse research areas and diverse sectors. We expect all hubs to integrate environmental sustainability at all stages of the research and innovation process. By this, we do not mean that hub research must focus on sustainable manufacturing as a research area.

Instead, we expect hubs to: embed environmental sustainability in all aspects of the hub, ensuring that environmental impact and mitigation is explicitly considered at all stages of the research lifecycle and throughout the lifetime of the hub identify the major challenges relating to environmental sustainability in the chosen research area and integrate these as part of the hub research programme.

You should consider ambitious challenges, which may be at a lower technology readiness level but will support a step change in future sustainability, as well as how to improve and embed sustainability in technology that is closer to commercialisation demonstrate leadership in environmental sustainability by carrying out hub operations in an environmentally sustainable way, with consideration of how to minimise the negative environmental impact of running the hub.

You should seek opportunities to influence others and leave a legacy of environmental sustainability within the broader operations of your academic and industry partners Sustainability may be used to cover three broad areas: social, economic and environmental. While hubs may wish to consider some aspects of social and economic sustainability as part of their programme, this is not the focus of this funding opportunity.

Environmental sustainability may include consideration of such broad areas as: reducing carbon emissions protecting and enhancing the natural environment and biodiversity waste or pollution elimination resource efficiency and circular economy Environmental sustainability is complex and there are often conflicting drivers.

Hubs will need to take a whole systems approach to enable consideration of the trade-offs, risks and mitigations associated with different approaches and ensure research outcomes are used to support industry and government partners to make informed choices and mitigate unintended consequences. Your proposal should be essentially the same idea presented in your outline proposal, but with additional detail.

It should not be a completely new idea or introduce significant new approaches, themes, or research areas. Project co-leads may be added to the proposal at this stage, where this would add complementary expertise, provided this does not constitute a significant change to the vision or programme of work.

We expect a hub director to have a track-record of collaborating with users and for the hub proposals to demonstrate cash and in-kind support from relevant and diverse sectors. A recent evaluation of our manufacturing research has set the bar for future leverage and impact high.

Therefore, while there is no required level for cash and in-kind contributions at the point of application, we expect that throughout the lifetime of the hub, the number of project partners will increase, and cash or in-kind contributions will rise to a level at least equal to our funding contribution.

To ensure that research outcomes from the hubs can be maximally exploited by industry, we are looking for clear evidence of genuine, substantive partnerships, with co-creation and co-delivery of projects and activities, in addition to financial contributions.

The hub’s strategy for engaging with industry should include plans to engage with a new and emerging range of relevant manufacturing companies, including small and medium-sized enterprises, throughout the lifetime of the hub. In the hub governance procedures, advice from users must be appropriately used in the hub decision-making strategy to grow user engagement in terms of funding and numbers of users.

For more information on the background of this opportunity, go to the Additional information section. The duration of this award is seven years. Start dates must be from 1 April to 31 July 2024 and will be awarded with a possible slippage of up to three months from that start date.

This opportunity is the second in a series of planned opportunities for manufacturing research hubs for a sustainable future over the coming years. The total EPSRC funding available for this opportunity will be up to £55 million, to fund up to five manufacturing research hubs for a sustainable future. Funding for each hub will be from £10 million to £11 million, awarded over seven years.

The full economic cost (FEC) of your project can be up to £13. 75 million. We will fund 80% of the FEC, and your organisation must agree to find the balance.

Funding is available in this opportunity for items of equipment dedicated to the hub, costing up to £400,000 (including VAT). These funds will be awarded at 80% of the FEC. Learn about EPSRC’s approach to equipment funding .

We are seeking to refresh and complement our existing future manufacturing hubs portfolio. Therefore, we will not fund two hubs in the same research area as each other.

We are also not accepting applications in the following areas, as we have sufficient coverage from our existing hubs portfolio: Further to this, there are additional existing hubs continuing work, where we would not fund substantial overlap, and you are advised to ensure this is the case: Future biomanufacturing research hub SUSTAIN manufacturing hub Future electrical machines manufacturing hub Proposals must demonstrably lie primarily within our remit and must be within the scope of this funding opportunity.

The research challenges must lie primarily within manufacturing. Any proposals that we deem out of remit or scope may be rejected without reference to peer review. Supporting skills and talent We encourage you to follow the principles of the Concordat to Support the Career Development of Researchers and the Technician Commitment .

You are expected to work within the EPSRC framework for responsible innovation . International collaboration If your application includes international applicants, project partners or collaborators, visit Trusted Research for more information on effective international collaboration. UK Research and Innovation (UKRI) Funding Service We are running the funding opportunity on the new Funding Service.

You cannot apply for this opportunity on the Joint Electronic Submissions (Je-S) system. If you do not already have an account with the Funding Service, you will be able to create one by selecting the ‘Start application’ button at the start of this page. Creating an account is a two-minute process requiring you to verify your email address and set a password.

If you are a member of an organisation with a research office that we do not have contact details for, we will contact them to enable administrator access. This provides: oversight of every Funding Service application opened on behalf of your organisation the ability to review and submit applications Research offices that have not already received an invitation to open an account should email support@funding-service. ukri.

org To find out more about the role of research office professionals in the application process, watch a recording of a recent research office webinar on YouTube . Submitting your application Applications should be prepared and submitted by the lead research organisation but should be co-created with input from all investigators, and project partners, and should represent the proposed work of the entire consortia.

Please note that there are multiple sections that each require a response, even if it is only ‘not applicable’. Not all of these sections are included in the opportunity document, rather information can only be found on the Funding Service. Project leads have edit rights on the Funding Service and their research office has visibility.

We expect project leads to share an off-line copy of the application with co-applicants using the ‘read view’ tab on the Funding Service, so that all are aware of the requirements at the outset. Attachments (for example vision and approach) will need to be shared separately as they do not automatically appear in the download. Select the ‘Start application’ button at the start of this page.

Start answering the questions detailed in this section of ‘How to apply’. You can save your work and come back to it later. You can also work ‘offline’, copying and pasting into the text boxes provided for your answers.

Once complete, use the service to send your application to your research office for review. They’ll check it and return it to you if it needs editing. Once happy, your research office will submit it to UKRI for assessment.

Only they can do this. As citations can be integral to a case for support, you should balance their inclusion and the benefit they provide against the inclusion of other parts of your answer to each question. Bear in mind that citations, associated reference lists or bibliographies, or both, contribute to, and are included in, the word count of the relevant section.

We must receive your application by 26 September 2023 at 4:00pm UK time. You will not be able to apply after this time. You should ensure you are aware of and follow any internal institutional deadlines that may be in place.

EPSRC, as part of UKRI, will need to collect some personal information to manage your Funding Service account and the registration of your funding applications. We will handle personal data in line with UK data protection legislation and manage it securely. For more information, including how to exercise your rights, read our privacy notice .

We will publish the outcomes of this funding Opportunity at Grants on the Web. If your application is successful, some personal information will be published via the UKRI Gateway to Research . UKRI Funding Service: section guidance In plain English, provide a summary that can be sent to potential reviewers to determine if your proposal is within their field of expertise.

This summary may be made publicly available on external facing websites, so please ensure it can be understood by a variety of readers, for example: the wider research community. Guidance for writing a summary Succinctly describe your proposed work in terms of: the challenge the project addresses and how it will be applied to this its potential applications and benefits.

List the key members of your team and assign them roles from the following: project co-lead (UK) (PcL) project co-lead (international (PcL (I)) professional support staff research and innovation associate You can only list one project lead. The project co-lead (international) (PcL (I)) role should only be used for applications making use of the UKRI-RCN Money Follows Cooperation agreement or the UKRI-IIASA agreement .

We do not otherwise accept project co-lead (international) applicants. Find out about UKRI’s new grant roles and eligibility . Section: Vision and Approach You should upload the Vision and Approach document as a six-page PDF, plus an additional page for a diagrammatic workplan.

The document must have single line spacing, margins of at least 2cm and be typed using Arial 11pt, or another ‘sans serif’ font with an equivalent size to Arial 11pt. You may include images, graphs, tables, provided you adhere to the page length rule and bear in mind that you can only upload 1 PDF and its file size cannot be larger than 8MB.

For the file name, use the unique Funding Service number the system gives to your proposal – when you create an application – immediately followed by the words ‘Vision and Approach’. Then use the upload button below. If the attachment does not meet these requirements, the application will be rejected.

Unless specifically requested, please do not include any personal data within the attachment. Once you have uploaded, enter ‘attachment provided’ in the textbox, mark this section as complete and move to the next one. Question: What are you hoping to achieve with and how will you deliver your proposed work?

What the assessors are looking for in your response Explain how your proposed work: is of excellent quality and importance within or beyond the fields or areas has the potential to advance current understanding, generates new knowledge, thinking or discovery within or beyond the field or area is timely given current trends, context and needs impacts world-leading research, society, the economy or the environment Within the Vision section we also expect you to: describe your hub concept and its context demonstrate the alignment of the proposal to the funding opportunity objectives highlight the ambition, adventure, and transformative aspects of the concept clearly state the research challenges that your hub will address.

These research challenges must lie within EPSRC’s remit and fit within the scope of the opportunity Provide a summary explanation of how you will embed environmental sustainability within all the hub activities, noting that there is a separate section where detail should be provided.

For the Approach, explain how you have designed your work so that it: is effective and appropriate to achieve your objectives is feasible, and comprehensively identifies any risks to delivery and how they will be managed if applicable, uses a clear and transparent methodology if applicable, summarises the previous work and describes how this will be built upon and progressed will maximise translation of outputs into outcomes and impacts describes how your, and if applicable your team’s, research environment (in terms of the place, its location, and relevance to the project) will contribute to the success of the work Within the Approach section we also expect you to: demonstrate the appropriateness of critical mass funding and the hub and spoke model for addressing the identified research challenges and the extent to which this would deliver added value demonstrate access to the appropriate services, facilities, infrastructure, or equipment to deliver the proposal provide a detailed and comprehensive project plan including milestones and timelines in the form of a Gantt chart or similar (additional one-page A4) include a detailed and appropriate plan for how you will acquire and manage data (additional one-page A4) Section: Embedding environmental sustainability Question: How will you embed environmental sustainability within all the hub activities?

What the assessors are looking for in your response Explain how your proposed work: will centre and embed environmental sustainability throughout hub aims, objectives, operations and research outcomes, considering the context of each hub’s specific research area ensure that environmental impact and mitigation is explicitly considered at all stages of the research lifecycle and throughout the lifetime of the hub will identify the major challenges relating to environmental sustainability in the chosen research area and integrate these as part of the hub research programme.

You should consider ambitious challenges, which may be at a lower technology readiness level but will support a step change in future sustainability, as well as how to improve and embed sustainability in technology that is closer to commercialisation demonstrates leadership in environmental sustainability by carrying out hub operations in an environmentally sustainable way, with consideration of how to minimise the negative environmental impact of running the hub.

You should seek opportunities to influence others and leave a legacy of environmental sustainability within the broader operations of your academic and industry partners Environmental sustainability may include consideration of such broad areas as: reducing carbon emissions protecting and enhancing the natural environment and biodiversity waste or pollution elimination resource efficiency and circular economy Environmental sustainability is complex and there are often conflicting drivers.

Hubs will need to take a whole systems approach to enable consideration of the trade-offs, risks and mitigations associated with different approaches and ensure research outcomes are used to support industry and government partners to make informed choices and mitigate unintended consequences.

Section: Applicant and team capability to deliver Word count: 1,500 (1,000 words to be used for R4RI modules and, if necessary, a further 500 words for Additions) Question: Why are you the right individual or team to successfully deliver the proposed work?

What the assessors are looking for in your response Evidence of how you, and if relevant your team, have: the relevant experience (appropriate to career stage) to deliver the proposed work the right balance of skills and expertise to cover the proposed work the appropriate leadership and management skills to deliver the work and your approach to develop others contributed to developing a positive research environment and wider community Use the Résumé for Research and Innovation (R4RI) format to showcase the range of relevant skills you, and if relevant your team (investigators, researchers, other technical staff for example research software engineers, data scientists and so on, and partners), have and how this will help to deliver the proposed work.

You can include individuals’ specific achievements but only choose past contributions that best evidence their ability to deliver this work. Complete this section using the R4RI module headings listed below. You should use each heading once and include a response for the whole team, see the UKRI guidance on R4RI .

You can enter N/A for any you think irrelevant, and will not be penalised for doing so, but it is recommended that you carefully consider the breadth of your experience: contributions to the generation of new ideas, tools, methodologies, or knowledge the development of others and maintenance of effective working relationships contributions to the wider research and innovation community contributions to broader research or innovation users and audiences and towards wider societal benefit additions (you can use this heading to provide information which provides context to the wider application, such as detail of career breaks – it is not a requirement) Additions: Provide any further details relevant to your application.

This section is not mandatory and can be up to 500 words. You should not use it to describe additional skills, experiences or outputs, but any factors that provide context for the rest of your R4RI (for example, details of career breaks if you wish to disclose them). You should complete this as a narrative and you should avoid CV type format.

Section: Your Organisation’s Support Question: provide details of support from your research organisation. What the assessors are looking for in your response Provide a statement of support from your research organisation detailing why the proposed work is needed. This should include details of any matched funding that will be provided to support the activity and any additional support that might add value to the work.

The panel will be looking for a strong statement of commitment from your research organisation. We recognise that in some instances, this information may be provided by the Research Office, the Technology Transfer Office (TTO) or equivalent, or a combination of both.

You must also include the following details: a significant person’s name and their position, from the TTO or Research Office, or both office address or web link Question: List the references you’ve used to support your application. What the assessors are looking for in your response: You should include all references in this section of the application and not in the rest of the application questions.

You should not include any other information in this section. We advise you not to include hyperlinks as assessors are not obliged to access the information they lead to or consider it in their assessment of your application. If linking to web resources, to ensure the information’s integrity is maintained include, where possible, persistent identifiers such as digital object identifiers.

You must not include links to web resources in order to extend your application. Section: Project partners: contributions Question: Provide details about any project partners’ contributions using the template provided. What the assessors are looking for in your response For your project partners, download and complete the project partner contributions template (DOCX, 52KB) then copy and paste the table within it into the text box.

Ensure you have obtained prior agreement from project partners that, should you be offered funding, they will support your project as indicated in the template. A project partner is a collaborating organisation that is contributing to the application and will have an integral role in the proposed research. Project partners cannot normally receive funding directly from the grant.

Two exceptions to this are: where a project partner is providing services or equipment that will go through a formal procurement process audited by the host research organisation the project partner can receive small amounts of funding from the grant, such as for travel and subsistence to attend project meetings.

These will need to be requested and fully justified in the application Section: Project Partners: letters (or emails) of support Question: Upload a single PDF containing the letters or emails of support from each partner you named in the table in the previous ‘contributions’ section.

What the assessors are looking for in your response For your named project partners in the previous ‘contributions’ section, enter the words ‘attachment supplied’ in the text box below.

Each letter or email you provide should: confirm the partner’s commitment to the project clearly explain the value, relevance and possible benefits of the work to them describe any additional value that they bring to the project please refer to the EPSRC’s guide for more guidance Please do not provide letters of support from host and co-investigators’ research organisations.

Unless specifically requested, please do not include any personal data within the attachment. Upload details are provided within the service on the actual application. Upload a single PDF containing the letters or emails of support from each partner you named in the table in the previous ‘contributions’ section ensuring it is no larger than 8MB.

For the file name, use the unique Funding Service number the system gives to your proposal – when you create an application – immediately followed by the words ‘Project Partner Letters of Support’. Then use the upload button below. For audit purposes, we require formal collaboration agreements to be put in place if an award is made.

Section: Resources and cost justification Question: What will you need to deliver your proposed work and how much will it cost? Using the costs table within the resources and cost section, provide details of the total funding required under each fund heading. You should include high-level costs only, not a detailed breakdown of individual items.

You should use the textbox for the justification of resources to provide further details on what is being requested and why it is needed to deliver your proposed work.

Using the text box, demonstrate how the resources you anticipate needing for your proposed work: are comprehensive, appropriate, and justified represent the optimal use of resources to achieve the intended outcomes maximise potential outcomes and impacts This resources and cost justification should not simply be a list of the resources requested, as this will already be given in the costs table.

Costings should be justified on the basis of full economic costs (FEC) of the project, not just on the costs expected from UKRI. For some items we do not expect you to justify the monetary value, rather the type of resource, such as amount of time or type of staff requested. Where you do not provide adequate justification for a resource, we may deduct it from any funding awarded.

support for activities to either increase impact, for public engagement, knowledge exchange or to support responsible innovation support for access to facilities, infrastructure, or procurement of equipment support for preserving, long-term storage, or sharing of data support from your organisation or partner organisations and how that enhances value for money Reviewers and panels may acknowledge the impact of university support but will not consider the level of matched university funding as a factor on which to base funding recommendations.

Question: Does your proposed research require the support and use of a facility? What the assessors are looking for in your response If not, enter N/A into the text box, mark this section as complete and move on to the next section. If you will need to use a facility, you should follow your proposed facility’s normal access request procedures.

Where prior agreement is required, ensure you obtain their agreement that, should you be offered funding, they will support the use of their facility on your project. In the text box below, for each requested facility you should provide: the name of facility, copied and pasted from the facilities information list