The UK Initiative in Graphene Research and Commercialisation (Printed Electronics Europe 2013)

• In October 2011 the UK government pledged a £50M investment to establish the UK as a graphene research and technology hub with the aim to capture the commercial benefits of graphene.

• The Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council (EPSRC) and the Technology Strategy Board (TSB) subsequently devised a UK strategy to support a National Graphene Research Institute and to provide significant investment in graphene engineering research focused on graphene applications and manufacturing.

• The talk will highlight recent investments, including a £21.5M investment in 'graphene engineering' and will highlight the significant support gained from industry that will help to stimulate the future sustainability of UK graphene research and the future commercialisation opportunities across a variety of sectors.

Dr Andy Lawrence is a senior portfolio manager at the Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council (EPSRC). As a part of EPSRC's priority theme 'Manufacturing the Future', Andy is responsible for 'Frontier Manufacturing', which aims to identify and progress long-term and emerging research fields with the potential for transformational impact on future manufacturing, which includes graphene engineering. Prior to working at EPSRC, Andy was a researcher in the field of meteorology, having held research positions at Massachusetts Institute of Technology (Boston, USA) and the European Centre for Medium-Range Weather Forecasts (Reading, UK) following a PhD from the University of Cambridge (collaborating with the British Antarctic Survey). Andy joined EPSRC in Dec 2007 as a research portfolio manager in the Information, Communications and Technology programme.

The Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council (EPSRC) is the UK's main agency for funding research in engineering and the physical sciences. EPSRC invests around £800 million a year in research and postgraduate training, to help the nation handle the next generation of technological change. The areas covered range from information technology to structural engineering, and mathematics to materials science. This research forms the basis for future economic development in the UK and improvements for everyone's health, lifestyle and culture. EPSRC works alongside other Research Councils with responsibility for other areas of research. The Research Councils work collectively on issues of common concern via Research Councils UK.