A new £40 million research centre at the University of Huddersfield will play a crucial role in the Fourth Industrial Revolution.

The Future Metrology Hub, which has received £10 million from the Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council (plus extra funding from universities and business partners), was opened last month with an event attended by more than 130 scientists, engineers, academics and industrialists from around the UK.

There were presentations from key figures, including Hub director Jane Jiang, who pled-ged that the technology developed in the lab — such as sensors and artificial-intelligence control systems — would be geared up for use in the real world of industry. She also stressed the need for inter-disciplinary collaboration in a wide range of sectors.

The University of Huddersfield — home to the world-renowned Centre for Precision Technologies — is at the centre of the Future Metrology Hub, while its ‘spokes’ are at the universities of Sheffield, Bath and Loughborough, which will contribute research in specialised areas.

The National Physical Laboratory, which has a regional base at the University of Huddersfield, is also involved, and there are 29 industrial partners.

One of these is Renishaw, which has been collaborating with the University of Huddersfield for a quarter of a century.

Its group engineering director, Geoff McFarland, gave the keynote address on the launch day. He described metrology as “one of our best manufacturing tools” and said that it needs to have a presence on the shopfloor.