A battery of ideas
The UK Business Secretary Greg Clark has announced that seven UK universities will be “leading pioneering research” into the next generation of battery technology. In a statement issued yesterday (2 October), the Department for Business said that the seven universities forming the Faraday Battery Institute are: Imperial College London; Newcastle University; University College London; University of Cambridge; University of Oxford; University of Southampton; and the University of Warwick.
The Faraday Battery Institute, with £65m from the Industrial Strategy Challenge Fund, is part of government’s £246m investment in battery technology through the Industrial Strategy.
The UK Business Secretary 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.”
In its statement regarding the Faraday Battery Institute, the Department for Business added that the UK Government will shortly unveil the winners of its first £55m Connected and Autonomous Vehicles (CAV) testing infrastructure competition.
This follows the government opening the £100m CAV test bed competition in April, inviting proposals for how to create a “cluster of excellence” in driverless car testing, along the M40 corridor between Coventry and London.
