Business and Trade Secretary Jonathan Reynolds has announced £103 million of government-industry funding for aerospace tech projects to support greener air travel at the launch of the 2024 Farnborough Airshow.
It comes as the latest figures from the aerospace industry’s trade body ADS show the sector contributed £38 billion to the UK economy in 2023.
The funding, delivered through the Aerospace Technology Institute (ATI) Programme, has been announced for five aerospace R&D projects led by GKN Aerospace, Queens University, Rolls-Royce, Short Brothers and ZeroAvia.
The projects will help pioneer innovations such as zero emission hydrogen-powered flight, new sustainable propulsion systems and turbine technologies, boosting thousands of high-skilled aerospace jobs across the UK and encouraging investment into the UK’s aerospace industry, as the Government prepares to launch its new Industrial Strategy.
“Our world-class aerospace sector added almost £40 billion to the economy last year, and by backing it to pioneer cutting-edge new technologies we’re delivering economic growth and supporting high-skilled jobs in every part of the UK,” said Reynolds.
“It’s fitting that I’m launching this new support here at Farnborough Airshow, where the best of British innovation is showcased on the global stage, reinforcing our commitment to placing innovation and manufacturing at the heart of our Industrial Strategy.”
Aerospace Technology Institute CEO Gary Elliott said: “The ATI Programme is continuing to target investment in world-class research projects that will deliver benefit for UK aerospace: accelerating technology development, growing our manufacturing capability, strengthening our supply chain and ensuring that the sector continues to generate economic return to the UK.
“The projects announced today focus on advanced technologies that take us a significant step closer to sustainable aviation, from new lightweight materials to new fuel systems. We look forward to building on this investment in support of an ambitious Industrial Strategy.”
The ATI Programme is a joint government and industry investment. Its purpose is to competitively offer funding for research and technology development in the UK, to maintain and grow the UK’s competitive position in civil aerospace and accelerate the transition to net zero aviation.
Since 2013, the government has co-invested with industry through the ATI Programme a total project cost of about £3.6 billion in total costs through grant and industry match-funding. These projects have had 438 unique partners involved from across the UK, including 290 SMEs.
The projects to be backed by the latest tranche of funding include:
The Hot Section Lifting and Materials (HOTLINE) project (£20.5m) – led by Rolls Royce, with project partners Cranfield University and the University of Birmingham will develop turbine technologies that reduce unit and life cycle costs.
Advanced Fuel Cell for Aviation Decarbonisation (£17.5m) – builds on ZeroAvia’s success with the Hyflyer I and II projects, to take the high temperature (HTPEM) fuel cell stacks technology to commercialisation stage, enabling zero emission hydrogen flight, with applications for rotorcraft and eVTOL.
Scenic Composites (£10.9m) – By developing a variety of high value testing and manufacturing equipment at the Advanced manufacturing Innovation Centre (AMIC), this project led by Queens University Belfast will build capability in the aerospace cluster in the Belfast region around composite materials.
IVI (£10m) – Short Brothers are leading this project with a key objective of reducing material usage, increasing fuel efficiency for a range of aircraft platforms, and enabling transition to new sustainable propulsion technologies. Government is awarding grant funding of £5.8 million.
H2FlyGHT (£44m) – led by GKN Aerospace and a UK-based consortium of major aerospace suppliers and academic partners, including Parker-Meggitt Aerospace and the universities of Nottingham and Manchester aims to develop and test a fully integrated liquid hydrogen fuel system and 2 megawatt cryogenic electrical propulsion system for the next generation of zero emission aircraft.