Nanotechnology

Nanotechnology represents a step change for the industrial design process - designing new materials from the molecular level - driven by both market needs and societal challenges.

METRC aims to deliver the strategic R&D services needed to drive the research agenda in UK industry. METRC's scientific focus is in the area of nanotechnology, science and engineering.

Focus

METRC's initial market focus includes:

  • Home and personal care
  • Medicine and healthcare
  • Energy
  • Chemicals

METRC helps companies to:

  • Develop new innovative products and processes
  • Reduce your time to market
  • Find experts to solve your problems
  • Access new technology developments

How they do this:

METRC has a dedicated knowledge transfer team that can support companies in the following ways:

  • Fund collaborative, translational research and innovation projects between SMEs (and in certain circumstances large companies) with universities (a list of eligible universities is on our website)
  • Provide a free, independent brokerage service for all companies to access the expertise of some of the UK’s leading academics across the North of England
  • Support industry and our academics to exploit existing ideas and research projects

Objectives

METRC’s core strengths and objectives have been identified as:

  • Funding collaborative research projects with industry
  • Independent brokerage with industry and academia
  • Exploiting the commercial potential of research through METRC’s extensive industry network
  • Developing new innovative products and processes
  • Reducing time to market
  • Finding experts to solve industry problems
  • Providing access to new technology developments

Successes

METRC has achieved significant success including:

  • Over the last four years METRC has developed significant networks, relationships and assets to deliver collaborative research
  • Joined together clusters of strength in molecular engineering to create a network that is internationally leading both in scale and capability, including over 500 businesses, 150 academics and 19 research groups
  • Connected this network with industrial supply chains in the regions which has resulted in two way translational research
  • Enabled industry to develop new products and processes, and reduced time to market
  • Supported close to 100 companies with innovation projects, created over 20 jobs and leveraged £5m of income

Contact

METRC Manager - Simon Butler
Tel: +44 (0)114 222 9450
Email: METRC@shef.ac.uk

Visit www.metrc.co.uk for further information.