To develop a national roadmap for advanced ceramics

Description

Please note: The University of Manchester no longer meets the criteria of a ‘body governed by public law’ and is therefore not considered a contracting authority for the purposes of the Public Contracts Regulations 2015 and/or any replacement legislation. As a result, the University of Manchester will no longer be subject to the regime contained in The Public Contracts Regulations 2015 and/or any replacement legislation with effect from 1 August 2023. Should the University advertise contracts on any official platform (e.g. Central Digital Platform/Find a Tender, or similar) or any other contract opportunity advertising site or platform it does so at its sole discretion and on a voluntary basis.<br /><br />2.1 Introduction<br />The UK is entering a pivotal phase in the evolution of its materials science and innovation capabilities. The National Materials Innovation Strategy identifies six core materials technology themes that will deliver significant economic value across the national materials supply chains and provide critical national resilience. With a strong foot in the Structural Innovations theme, but applications in many diverse sectors, advanced ceramics is an underpinning class of materials and systems which operate in the shadows of the UK manufacturing economy. Their inherent properties – chemical inertness, thermal stability, hardness, and tuneable conductivity – make them increasingly prevalent in advanced systems, including telecommunications, energy, health, transport, manufacturing, space, and environmental systems. The UK must expand its capabilities in new advanced ceramic compositions and commercialise new manufacturing processes to secure a key industrial sector that underpins most of the IS8.<br />This RFQ invites proposals to develop a national roadmap for advanced ceramics, identifying opportunities, priorities, and activities to accelerate their development, translation, and adoption across the UK’s industrial supply chains. <br /><br />2.2 Background<br />The UK has significant strengths across parts of its ceramic materials supply chain, particularly from intermediate materials through to product manufacture for global platforms. However, there are gaps in the UK supply chain's ability to secure and commercialise IP and provide supply chain resilience in global markets. <br /><br />Innovation in areas of technical ceramic materials needs to be accelerated, captured and scaled within the UK to ensure a competitive sector is maintained delivering economic and technical strategic advantage and national sovereignty in manufactured products across IS8 supply chains. Further, there is a need to protect, de-risk, and enable supply chains to industrialise and commercialise these ceramics and ceramic process technologies to realise maximum ROI. <br />A roadmap for the sector will align UK capabilities, provide focus for high impact initiatives, improve competitiveness, de-risk investment, foster cross-sector collaboration, and realise the tangible benefits of a vibrant advanced-ceramics sector.<br /><br />2.3 Objectives<br />The primary objective of this project is to produce a roadmap for the UK’s advanced (technical) ceramics sector. This will include:<br />Producing an overarching vision for advanced ceramics with a common lexicon and processes, which has community buy-in.<br />Mapping the current UK landscape and identifying critical capability gaps.<br />Proposing a national policy and coordination model that enables national alignment.<br />Developing an implementation roadmap with milestones, investment pathways, and stakeholder roles demonstrated through the execution of top-down opportunities where these technologies will address different key materials challenges across the relevant IS8. <br />Understand how the roadmap compares and complements related national and international activities.<br />Recommending mechanisms to connect research, technology development, scale-up, and supply chain resilience.<br /><br />2.4 Scope of Work<br />The work will build on road mapping activities and stakeholder engagement already undertaken by Royce, the National Materials Innovation Strategy, and the wider national network. <br />The delivery of the roadmap will be the responsibility of the organisation(s) awarded the RFQ; however, given the national importance and breadth of the subject, the activity will be overseen, monitored and guided by a dedicated Steering Group appointed by Royce. This group will, in turn, report to the National Materials Strategy Leadership.<br />The development of the roadmap will be completed in two stages:<br />Stage 1: A Landscape and Gap Analysis with a preliminary outline of the approach to roadmap development<br />Stage 2: Detailed National roadmap and implementation strategy<br /><br />