PRESS RELEASE

For Immediate Use 

16^th March 2018

KCMC shares innovation capabilities at Materials Research Exchange event

The Knowledge Centre for Materials Chemistry, the UK’s innovation broker in materials chemistry, this week attended Innovate UK’s Materials Research Exchange and Investor Showcase (MRE). The two-day conference, hosted at the Business Design Centre in London, saw a large proportion of the UK’s materials community come together to engage in talks, seminars and an exhibition exploring key topics in materials science today, such as composites and batteries. The UK boasts a hub of excellence and know-how in advanced materials, and the sector’s growth is thought to be a key driver in the success of the future UK economy. Exhibitors comprised of representatives from universities, institutes and industry, including the Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council (EPSRC), Knowledge Transfer Network (KTN), and the new Henry Royce Institute for Materials Science Research and Innovation. At the event, KCMC was able to promote its work in accelerating R&D collaboration between business and academia in the chemistry-using industries to a highly relevant audience. KCMC shared a stand with partners, the Centre for Process Innovation (CPI), the process arm of the UK’s High Value Manufacturing Catapult. Exhibiting alongside CPI enabled KCMC to promote and explain its new links to the development of innovative materials technologies at CPI’s facilities. KCMC also took part in the exhibitor pitches, with Sohail Hajatdoost, Knowledge Transfer Manager based at the University of Bristol, taking to the stage to showcase the role of KCMC in advancing materials innovation in only five minutes. Particular highlights of the event for the KCMC team included The Faraday Institution’s presentation on its solid-state battery research, and how the University of Liverpool is leading key activities in materials discovery and degradation. Another highlight included hearing from Tom Taylor, Senior Industrial Innovation Manager at CPI, who in his talk mentioned how working with KCMC is advancing CPI’s academic connections for innovation. John Conti-Ramsden, Director of KCMC, said: ​“This event was a good opportunity for us to highlight the benefits of the recent transfer of KCMC hosting to CPI, and to help build new networks on materials innovation challenges for the future.” Ron Swart, Knowledge Transfer Manager for KCMC, based at Southampton University, said: ​“It was a great, well-organised event that was very relevant to materials chemistry today. It was very beneficial to be able to meet and talk with exhibitors from industry, and for them to engage with key academic centres, including the academic partners of KCMC.”

Notes to the Editor

About KCMC

The Knowledge Centre for Materials Chemistry (KCMC) is a partnership established in 2009 between the Universities of Bolton, Bristol, Liverpool, Manchester, Southampton and the Science and Technology Facilities Council (STFC) Hartree Centre, hosted by the Centre for Process Innovation. KCMC accelerates valuable R&D collaborations between business and academics in the chemistry-using industries. It does this to encourage and develop product and process innovations in advanced materials faster, at reduced cost and risk. The KCMC team, spread across partner universities in the UK, offers great knowledge and experience of materials chemistry in both academia and industry to facilitate innovation partnerships. The work of KCMC creates collaborations in materials chemistry and advanced materials that otherwise would not have happened, and has been shown to deliver direct impact on business performance and boost the UK economy. For more information, please visit: kcmc@​uk-​cpi.​com Follow us on Twitter ### Contact information: info@​materialschemistry.​org Editorial follow-up: Tori Blakeman, Notch Communications tori.​blakeman@​notchcommunications.​co.​uk +44 (0) 161 457 7230