Shaping the Future for
the Foundation Industries in the UK

Foreword

Look over any city skyline today; more than three-quarters of the manufactured materials you see will have come from the foundation sector. These industries provide materials needed by the whole economy. Take the most dynamic digital companies, biotech labs, and satellite technology providers - none of them can exist without having premises and infrastructure built for them, and building this means concrete, steel, and glass. 

Annually worth £52bn and employing over half a million people from all corners of the UK, the foundation industries also include ceramics, paper, and bulk chemicals. They are the bedrock of modern society and will remain so as we create a more sustainable society that meets the imperative of climate change. 

Innovation was at the centre of these industries becoming the globalised sector they are today, but while all have continued to innovate across the decades, the scale and pace of innovation now needs to increase rapidly. As part of this journey, UKRI’s Transforming Foundation Industries (TFI) Challenge, delivered by Innovate UK, Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council (EPSRC) and Economic and Social Research Council (ESRC), provides a programme of interventions. These are designed to scale the pipeline of innovative solutions, technologies, and research needed to enact such a rapid and sustainable transformation. 

At the heart of this are forward-thinking companies prepared to collaborate with those in other industries and the best the UK’s academic base offers. It breaks through barriers that hinder fast-paced innovation at scale and unlocks future economic and social benefits for regions across the UK as well as overseas. 

Launched in response to the barriers to innovation created by the COVID-19 pandemic, and its impact on networking and collaboration opportunities, this competition allowed single-partner and single-sector projects as well as cross-industry consortia. It was designed to ensure the continuity of impactful innovation, and here we showcase and celebrate some of the inspiring projects that have come through the TFI Challenge Resilient Recovery funding programme.

Bruce Adderley
Challenge Director, Transforming Foundation Industries