Industry, Innovation and Infrastructure

A new £4m Manchester fashion research hub using collaborative and soft robotics and agile tooling to support local and sustainable production has been given the green light (2024). The Robotics Living Lab (RoLL) will support new research in collaboration with small businesses to bring back fashion manufacturing to the UK, using new technologies to develop innovative, new, carbon neutral and sustainable fashion technologies.

A new £1.2million project  (2023) will see Manchester Metropolitan partner with five North West universities to develop the very latest cyber security innovations. They will come together with entrepreneurs, investors and government to transform cutting-edge knowledge into innovative new products, services and policy, with the aim of better protecting consumers, businesses and UK infrastructure.

The Centre for Enterprise team continues to support cohorts in the Help to Grow Programme which has been supporting small businesses since 2021 to improve their management and digital adoption and reach their growth potential. 

The Greater Manchester Cyber Foundry (2021-2022) and AI Foundry (2021-ongoing) projects have worked with over 200 local SMEs to develop their knowledge and expertise in cybersecurity and artificial intelligence so they can lead innovation in the city-region’s fast-growing digital sector. The AI Foundry project received £3m from the European Regional Development Fund via the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government, with partners delivering a further £3m in matched funding.

Our award-winning collaboration with Aquacheck Engineering has taken research findings on smart sensors and energy management protocols to create a novel, smart mobile water metering device. The product provides water companies with real-time data on the location, volume, flow and pressure of water abstracted from the network. See also https://www.mmu.ac.uk/research/our-impact/case-studies/aquacheck

Our world-leading computational fluid dynamics modelling of the interactions between wave and maritime structures has been deployed by engineering firm Royal HaskoningDHV to guide the design of award-winning coastal protection projects including the “flood-tastic wonderwall” in Littlehaven, South Tyneside and the UK’s first sandscaping sea defence in Norfolk which protects villages and the UK’s most important gas terminal from coast erosion.