Business Secretary Greg Clark has announced the consortium of UK universities that will form the Faraday Battery Institute — a new £65 million research institute responsible for boosting the UK’s status as a global leader in battery research and technology.

The Institute will bring together the expertise and insight of its seven founding partner universities — plus industry partners and other academic institutions — to accelerate fundamental research to develop battery technologies and ensure that the UK is well placed to take advantage of developments in this area.

The seven universities are: Imperial College London; Newcastle University; University College London; the University of Cambridge; the University of Oxford; the University of Southampton; and the University of Warwick.

Mr Clark said: “Through the Faraday Research Challenge, we are cementing our position as the ‘go to’ destination for battery technology, so we can exploit the global transition to a low-carbon economy.

"The Faraday Battery Institute will have a critical role in fostering innovative research collaboration between our world-leading universities and world-beating businesses to make this technology more accessible and more affordable.

“We have huge expertise in this area already, and the Faraday Battery Institute collaboration between our seven founding universities provides a unique opportunity for us to bring together our expertise and an effort in this area behind a common set of strategic goals to ensure that the UK exploits the jobs and business opportunities.

"With £65 million of funding through the Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council, the Institute will invest an initial £13.7 million to set up a headquarters.”

In July, Mr Clark confirmed that the Government would be making an investment of £246 million (over four years) in the Faraday Research Challenge, to ensure that the UK leads the world in the design, development and manufacture of electric batteries.

This Challenge is just one of six areas that the Government, together with business and academia, identified through
its flagship Industrial Strategy Challenge Fund as being one of the UK’s core industrial challenges and opportunities, where research and innovation can help unlock markets and industries of the future in which the UK can become world-leading.