The British government has given the go-ahead to a new £235m science research center called the Sir Henry Royce Institue for Advanced Materials Research and Innovation in Manchester, which will also have satellite branches in Leeds, Liverpool, London, Cambridge, Oxford and Sheffield.
The center will investigate the rapidly growing field of materials science across a range of disciplines including engineering, nanotechnology and chemistry. It is meant to complement the soon-to-be-opened National Graphene Institute (NGI), as well as the planned £60m Graphene Engineering Innovation Center (GEIC).
This is the largest single funding agreement in the University of Manchester's history, which joins several other recent significant graphene investments like IBM's $3 billion chip investement with graphene inmind and the UK's $1 billion Graphene Flagship Project.