Royce Industrial Collaboration Programme (ICP5)

The ICP aims to match companies with research, development, and innovation (RD&I) projects with UK experts in materials science and cutting-edge facilities to accelerate the transfer of new technologies.

Round 5 of the Royce Industrial Collaboration Programme (ICP5) will catalyse joint materials innovation projects between universities, research and technology organisations (RTOs), and businesses of all sizes across the UK.

Royce invites proposals for projects that explore innovative materials solutions across one of the five key scope areas listed below:

Sustainable Materials Innovation

• Materials innovations to support sustainability across the foundation industries (cement, metal, glass, chemicals, polymers, paper, and ceramics sectors), including design, production, use, and end-of-life considerations.
• Resource efficiency and scarcity: Innovations in materials use and recycling to address the scarcity of critical minerals and reduce dependence on limited resources.

Extending Life of Major Assets Through Materials Science

• Performance enhancement and degradation mitigation: Development of surface treatments, coatings, or repair strategies to enhance or extend lifespan of large infrastructure assets.
• Smart infrastructure management: Solutions that enable structural material health modelling (prediction), measurement, and monitoring.

Advanced Materials for Next Generation Quantum and Semiconductor Devices

• High-frequency telecommunications, sensing, and power electronics.
• New functionalities, heterogeneous integration, and metamaterials.
• Thin-film development for low-power electronics.

Energy Materials and Green Hydrogen Technologies

• Materials for production, storage, transport, and utilisation of hydrogen in gaseous and liquid form.
• Advanced energy materials: Energy harvesting, storage, and conversion technologies for efficient, scalable solutions.

Healthcare Innovation

• Material innovations in healthcare: Materials for medical applications that interface effectively with biological systems to realise a healthier population.

Eligibility 

• Include at least one business and at least one university or RTO
• Able to start from Wednesday, 1 October 2025, at the latest
• Complete all Royce-funded activity by Saturday, 28 February 2026
• Carry out project work in the UK
• Intend to exploit the results from or in the UK
• Incur all Royce-funded costs within the project’s duration
• Be a new project or activity that has not already started

ICP5 includes funding remaining from an additional £1 million contribution from Innovate UK, almost £500,000 of which was awarded during ICP4 in 2024, with the remainder to be awarded in this round.