Catapult centres are organisations set up from 2011 onwards by
Innovate UK
Innovate UK is the United Kingdom's innovation agency, which provides money and support to organisations to make new products and services. It is a non-departmental public body operating at arm's length from the Government as part of the United ...
in the United Kingdom to promote
research and development through business-led collaboration between scientists and engineers to exploit market opportunities. They receive grants from public funds but are also expected to seek commercial funding.
History
In 2010, the
Department for Business, Innovation and Skills commissioned a report on technical innovation from
Hermann Hauser
Hermann Maria Hauser, KBE, FRS, FREng, FInstP, CPhys (born 1948) is an Austrian-born entrepreneur, venture capitalist and inventor who is primarily associated with the Cambridge technology community in England.
Education and early life
W ...
, an entrepreneur who had been active in information technology since 1978. The report recommended the establishment of a number of Technology and Innovation Centres.
Each centre received "core" funding of £10 million per year for five years via the Technology Strategy Board (which since 2014 has used the name
Innovate UK
Innovate UK is the United Kingdom's innovation agency, which provides money and support to organisations to make new products and services. It is a non-departmental public body operating at arm's length from the Government as part of the United ...
). Since 2018, Innovate UK has been a council of
United Kingdom Research and Innovation
UK Research and Innovation (UKRI) is a non-departmental public body of the Government of the United Kingdom that directs research and innovation funding, funded through the science budget of the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial St ...
, a non-departmental public body.
It was intended that the long-term split would be one-third core funding, one-third commercial funding, and one-third collaborative (public and private) research & development funding.
Centres
![National Composites Centre, from north-east](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/c/c5/National_Composites_Centre%2C_from_north-east.jpg)
The current centres, with their operational dates and locations, are as follows.
* Cell & Gene Therapy – October 2012 – at
Guy's Hospital
Guy's Hospital is an NHS hospital in the borough of Southwark in central London. It is part of Guy's and St Thomas' NHS Foundation Trust and one of the institutions that comprise the King's Health Partners, an academic health science centre. ...
, London.
*
Connected Places – April 2019, replacing the Transport Systems and Future Cities catapult centres.
*
Digital – June 2013 – in
Kings Cross, London.
*
High Value Manufacturing – October 2011 – seven Technology and Innovation centres working with companies of all sizes to bridge the gap in, and accelerate the activity between technology concept and commercialisation. These include:
** The
Centre for Process Innovation – at
Redcar, North Yorkshire.
**The National Composites Centre – at the
Bristol and Bath Science Park.
**
Warwick Manufacturing Group
WMG, University of Warwick (formerly Warwick Manufacturing Group), is a UK-based research and education group combining collaborative research and development with education programmes working in applied science, technology and engineering. An ...
– at the University of Warwick.
* Offshore Renewable Energy – March 2013 –
wind
Wind is the natural movement of air or other gases relative to a planet's surface. Winds occur on a range of scales, from thunderstorm flows lasting tens of minutes, to local breezes generated by heating of land surfaces and lasting a few ho ...
,
wave
In physics, mathematics, and related fields, a wave is a propagating dynamic disturbance (change from equilibrium) of one or more quantities. Waves can be periodic, in which case those quantities oscillate repeatedly about an equilibrium (re ...
and
tidal power
Tidal power or tidal energy is harnessed by converting energy from tides into useful forms of power, mainly electricity using various methods.
Although not yet widely used, tidal energy has the potential for future electricity generation. Ti ...
, in
Glasgow
Glasgow ( ; sco, Glesca or ; gd, Glaschu ) is the most populous city in Scotland and the fourth-most populous city in the United Kingdom, as well as being the 27th largest city by population in Europe. In 2020, it had an estimated popul ...
and
Blyth, Northumberland
Blyth () is a town and civil parish in southeast Northumberland, England. It lies on the coast, to the south of the River Blyth and is approximately northeast of Newcastle upon Tyne. It has a population of about 37,000, as of 2011.
The port o ...
. The National Renewable Energy Centre (
Narec
Narec, since 2014 known as the National Renewable Energy Centre, is a part of the Offshore Renewable Energy (ORE) Catapult, a British technology innovation and research centre for offshore wind power, wave energy, tidal energy and low carbon t ...
) at Blyth merged with ORE in 2014.
* Satellite Applications – December 2012 – at
Harwell Science and Innovation Campus
The Harwell Science and Innovation Campus is a 700-acre science and technology campus in Oxfordshire, England. Over 6,000 people work there in over 240 public and private sector organisations, working across sectors including Space, Clean Ener ...
, Oxfordshire.
* Energy Systems – April 2015 – in
Birmingham
Birmingham ( ) is a City status in the United Kingdom, city and metropolitan borough in the metropolitan county of West Midlands (county), West Midlands in England. It is the second-largest city in the United Kingdom with a population of 1. ...
.
* Medicines Discovery – December 2015 – at
Alderley Park, Cheshire; absorbed the former Precision Medicines Catapult in 2017.
* Compound Semiconductor Applications – 2016 – in
Newport, South Wales.
2017 report
The
Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy commissioned a report from
Ernst & Young
Ernst & Young Global Limited, trade name EY, is a multinational professional services partnership headquartered in London, England. EY is one of the largest professional services networks in the world. Along with Deloitte, KPMG and Pricewat ...
which was published in November 2017 following the completion of the five-year funding of the first centres.
The report found that approximately £1.25 billion had been received by the centres, of which about £745 million came from the public sector. Of the then established Catapult centres, only the High-Value Manufacturing Catapult had achieved its funding targets, with the others heavily reliant on public funding. The report criticised the strategies, governance and performance management of most of the centres, and made 38 recommendations. Three centres – Digital, Future Cities and Transport Systems – were identified as in need of remedial plans, with the possibility of halting their further funding.
2018 funding
In August 2018, the government announced funding totalling £780 million to be provided to several of the centres, over the next five years.
References
External links
* {{Official website
Department for Business, Innovation and Skills
Science and technology in the United Kingdom