Turning £66m seed money into £200m+ of co investment (and growing): UKRI’s Transforming Foundation Industries Challenge, delivered by Innovate UK, EPSRC and ESRC.
This episode steps back to the early innovation cycle that is still needed to accelerate industrial decarbonisation. Bruce Adderley, UKRI Challenge Director of the UKRI’s Transforming Foundation Industries Challenge, delivered by Innovate UK, EPSRC and ESRC, joins the podcast to explore how the £66m of the TFI Challenge in the UK has had an amplified effect, securing £200m+ of co-investment for collaborations across steel, cement, chem, glass and more of the foundation industries.
Whether you are UK-based or not, listen in these takeaways including:
- How govt grants can be used to drive novel interventions in our oldest industries
- How collaboration across industry, rather than siloed grant allocations, was the secret to successful projects and scaling of innovative tech
- How the investor partnering programme secured co-investments from entities including HG investors, the Clean Growth Fund, SpeedInvest Industry, Turquoise International and Midven Limited
You’ll also hear about two specific projects the Challenge ignited:
- Cement 2 Zero (reuse of end of life cement in electric arc furnaces)
- Rectify (a circular supply chain developing high-quality grades of recycled steel for the production of low carbon ‘green steel’)
UK-based? This is also a great opportunity hear about how tax payer money has been put to use in ways that are leading to further co investments in decarb, new facilities and city regeneration.
Based outside the UK? Listen in and share this with policy makers/influencers and those trying to spark decarbonisation projects with seed capital elsewhere in the world.
Don’t forget – you can meet Bruce and learn about another project in the challenge that involves Unilever at our Decarb Connect UK event in Manchester from February 27-29.
Show Links:
- Learn about Bruce Adderley and UKRI’s Transforming Foundation Industries Challenge
- Learn more about the TFI Co-Investor Partner Programme
- Read up on the Rectify project and watch a video about Cement2Zero
- Connect with Alex to suggest a guest or to talk about what you’re hearing on the podcast (or simply to learn more about Decarb Connect)
- Explore our upcoming events in the US, UK, Europe, Canada and more
Want to learn more about Decarb Connect?
We’re a platform which supports the acceleration of industrial decarbonization around the globe. We look specifically at the most energy-intensive industrials from cement, metals and mining, glass, ceramics, chemicals, O&G and many more and help connect them to technology disruptors, investors and advisors.
Through our Decarbonisation Leaders Network (DLN), our members share insights and experiences as they accelerate their net zero plans across the hard to abate sectors. Check out our full offering and learn more about our members, summits, reports and webinars.
If you enjoyed this conversation, take a look at many more conversations and discussions about industrial decarbonisation taking place across our global event series
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