Nearly 300 of the UK’s top academics, industrialists and government representatives were in Cambridge last week discussing how to support innovation and world-class manufacturing in the UK.

The EPSRC’s fourth Manufacturing the Future conference was opened by Professor Sir Mike Gregory, outgoing head of the IfM, with a video presentation from the Secretary of State for Business, Innovation and Skills, Sajid Javid. Both speakers emphasised the need to develop an infrastructure which will ensure that new ideas emerging from the UK’s research base are successfully commercialised to deliver economic impact. Speakers from the EPSRC, the Department of Business, Innovation and Skills, and Innovate UK outlined some of the successes achieved to date but stressed that opportunities remain to do more.

Throughout the two-day conference, delegates heard from leading companies such as Caterpillar, Dyson, Rolls-Royce, Siemens and Toyota, from the EPSRC’s Centres for Innovative Manufacturing and from some of Innovate UK’s Catapults. Speakers described current practice and considered how industry and universities can further strengthen their partnerships and the ways in which government can best support them in this endeavour.

The conference was closed by Professor Andy Neely, who takes over as head of the IfM on 1 October.

To view the tweets from the events, please search for #epsrcmtf on twitter.

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