BEIS Secretary Greg Clark has launched the first phase of a £246m UK government investment into battery R&D known as the Faraday Challenge.
The Faraday Challenge competitions will be divided into three streams – research, innovation and scale-up – designed to translate UK research into market-ready technology.
The research 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 Battery Institute will be moved closer to the market through industrial collaborations led by Innovate UK.
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.
An overarching Faraday Challenge Advisory Board will be established and chaired by Professor Richard Parry-Jones, a former chief technical officer of Ford.
“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,” said Clark.
Image: Greg Clark (BEIS)
