The EPSRC sponsored "Manufacturing the Future utilising the UK’s Large Facilities" Town Hall Meeting will be held at the at the Royal Society on January 21st, 2020.

The goal is to help define and lead the National Agenda on “Utilising x-rays, photons and neutrons to Manufacture the Future. The need for this was raised by a number of the Future Manufacturing Hubs, the UK Catalysis Hub, High Value Manufacturing Catapults, UK Industry and the UK’s Large Facilities.

To help set the UK agenda for this interaction in the area of the EPSRC’s Future Manufacturing Research Hubs, we will host a Town Hall meeting in London, with the full support of EPSRC and involving industry, academics and Large Facilities’ representatives.

The meeting will focus on how best to increase the engagement between the EPSRC’s Hubs (both Future Manufacturing Hubs and the UK Catalysis Hub) with the Large Facilities (Diamond Light Source, ISIS Neutron Source, and the Central Laser Facilities) on the Harwell Science and Innovation Campus. We will also look at blockages in translating these results to Industry, and how these can be overcome. One key area that the community has been discussing is the establishment of a centre at Harwell for the interaction of the hubs, their Industrial Partners and others with the Large Facilities to address key scientific challenges within the Industrial Strategy, such as the Made Smarter initiative. Therefore, one potential outcome would be the establishment of a hub at Harwell for in situ and operando manufacturing experiments, which is timely as one potential initial location would be in the new extension at Research Complex at Harwell.