Discover
Find the person, the kit, or the job
Experts, universities, startups, research centres, equipment, open collaborations and work packages — one search box, fewer speeches.
One search box across five kinds of thing. Type what you need in plain words, or narrow by kind and domain if you would rather browse.
Showing 35 results
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Boffin · South Kensington
Prof. Harriet Pemberton
Professor of Aerospace Structures · Imperial College London
Knows what a composite wing does when you ask it to work on a Monday. Advises on structures that must be light, honest, and certifiable.
Aerospace & Defence · Advanced Manufacturing · Materials & Quantum
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Boffin · Edinburgh
Dr Fiona MacLeod
Senior Lecturer in Electrochemical Engineering · The University of Edinburgh
Treats batteries and electrolysers as engineering, not as a personality. Excellent on the bit between a promising electrode and a plant that pays for itself.
Clean Energy & Net Zero · Materials & Quantum · Advanced Manufacturing
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Boffin · Bloomsbury
Dr Amina Shah
Associate Professor of Medical Devices · University College London
Translates devices that clinicians will actually use. Knows the difference between a clever sensor and a product that can be sterilised, billed, and trusted.
Life Sciences & MedTech · Digital & AI · Advanced Manufacturing
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Boffin · Derby
Sir Geoffrey Walsh
Industrial Fellow, Propulsion · Formerly Rolls-Royce · now independent
Has seen more combustors than most people have seen combustor slides. Now introduces the next generation to the ones that still work.
Aerospace & Defence · Clean Energy & Net Zero · Advanced Manufacturing
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Boffin · Swansea
Dr Tomos Evans
Principal Scientist, Steel & Circularity · Swansea University
Takes steel seriously in a decade that keeps pretending it can do without it. Particularly good on coatings, scrap, and things that rust in Welsh rain.
Materials & Quantum · Advanced Manufacturing · Mobility & Infrastructure
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Boffin · Oxford
Dr Priya Venkat
Lecturer in Industrial Machine Learning · University of Oxford
Teaches models manners. Her work lives on the shop floor, where a false positive has a cost and a false negative has a larger one.
Digital & AI · Advanced Manufacturing · Mobility & Infrastructure
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Boffin · Glasgow
Dr Callum Fraser
Senior Research Fellow, Marine Energy · University of Strathclyde
Works with water that has opinions. Tidal and wave devices, moorings, and the North Atlantic's gift for finding the weak bolt.
Clean Energy & Net Zero · Mobility & Infrastructure · Advanced Manufacturing
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Boffin · Bristol
Dr Sophie Chen
Associate Professor of Robotics · University of Bristol
Builds robots that can be trusted near people and parts. Inspection, assembly, and the gentle art of not dropping a £40,000 optic.
Advanced Manufacturing · Digital & AI · Life Sciences & MedTech
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Boffin · Glasgow
Dr Eleri Vaughan
Senior Lecturer in Spacecraft Engineering · University of Glasgow
Gets small spacecraft through qualification without cooking the payload. Thermal design, test procedures, and the schedule nobody costed properly.
Space & Satellites · Advanced Manufacturing · Materials & Quantum
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Boffin · Cambridge
Dr Ruth Ellison
Independent Consultant, Regulatory Science & Quality Systems · Independent · formerly a notified body
Has read more technical files than is entirely healthy. Tells device companies what they will be asked for, while there is still time to have it.
Life Sciences & MedTech · Digital & AI · Advanced Manufacturing
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Organisation · Manchester
The University of Manchester
university
Graphene's hometown, and still rather good at the rest of the periodic table. A serious industrial city with a serious university attached.
Materials & Quantum · Advanced Manufacturing · Digital & AI · Life Sciences & MedTech
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Organisation · National network
High Value Manufacturing Catapult
research centre
The country's workshop with a research degree. Helps firms move from 'it worked once' to 'it works on a line'.
Advanced Manufacturing · Aerospace & Defence · Digital & AI · Clean Energy & Net Zero
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Organisation · Glasgow
University of Glasgow
university
Builds an improbable number of small spacecraft for a city with no launch pad. Also rather good at very small things generally.
Space & Satellites · Advanced Manufacturing · Materials & Quantum · Life Sciences & MedTech
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Organisation · Sheffield
Hearthline
startup
Industrial heat pumps for people who still have a furnace and a spreadsheet that no longer adds up. Yorkshire pragmatism, London-grade thermodynamics.
Clean Energy & Net Zero · Advanced Manufacturing · Mobility & Infrastructure
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Organisation · Bristol
Quill Robotics
startup
Inspection robots with good manners. Designed for airframes, laboratories, and any corridor too narrow for a heroic human.
Advanced Manufacturing · Digital & AI · Life Sciences & MedTech
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Organisation · Orkney
Tidewright
startup
Tidal generation designed by people who live next to the water. Less brochure, more weather window.
Clean Energy & Net Zero · Mobility & Infrastructure · Advanced Manufacturing
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Organisation · Oxford
Ridgeway Diagnostics
startup
A point-of-care diagnostics company that started its quality system before its second prototype. This is rarer than it ought to be.
Life Sciences & MedTech · Digital & AI · Advanced Manufacturing
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Organisation · Leeds
Plumbline
startup
Industrial machine learning for firms who have been sold a dashboard before. Calibrated, auditable, and willing to say it does not know.
Digital & AI · Advanced Manufacturing · Mobility & Infrastructure
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Organisation · Glasgow
University of Strathclyde
university
A technological university in a city that still builds things. Marine energy, manufacturing, and a useful impatience with vagueness.
Clean Energy & Net Zero · Advanced Manufacturing · Space & Satellites
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Equipment · Manchester
Electron Microscopy Suite
The University of Manchester
SEMs, TEMs, and the patience to prepare a sample that will not lie. Used by people who need to see the grain, not the brochure.
Materials & Quantum · Advanced Manufacturing · Life Sciences & MedTech
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Equipment · Coventry
Metal additive manufacturing cell
High Value Manufacturing Catapult
Lasers, powder, and the post-processing everyone forgets to budget. For parts that must be more than a conversation piece.
Advanced Manufacturing · Aerospace & Defence · Clean Energy & Net Zero
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Equipment · Glasgow
Thermal-vacuum and vibration test facility
University of Glasgow
Where a payload finds out what it is. Chamber time, a vibration table, and staff who will not let you test without a written procedure.
Space & Satellites · Materials & Quantum · Advanced Manufacturing
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Equipment · Leeds
Large-scale structures laboratory
University of Leeds
A strong floor, several actuators, and a willingness to load a real component until it objects. For remaining-life questions that a model cannot settle.
Mobility & Infrastructure · Materials & Quantum · Advanced Manufacturing
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Equipment · South Wales coast
Coastal exposure and coatings test site
Swansea University
Panels on a rack by the sea, patiently disproving accelerated test results. Slow, cheap, and unusually difficult to argue with.
Materials & Quantum · Mobility & Infrastructure · Advanced Manufacturing
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Equipment · Edinburgh
Electrochemical and cell test suite
The University of Edinburgh
Cells cycled against duty profiles that came from a real site rather than a standard. Includes the safety testing everyone would rather postpone.
Clean Energy & Net Zero · Materials & Quantum · Advanced Manufacturing
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Equipment · Bristol
Robotics and inspection development cell
University of Bristol
A cell where a robot is allowed to be bad at the job in private. Compliant manipulators, inspection rigs, and a safety officer who joins in week two.
Advanced Manufacturing · Digital & AI · Life Sciences & MedTech
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Collaboration · Bristol / Oxford / Leeds
Shop-floor vision without the theatre
Quill Robotics · University of Oxford · Plumbline
A collaboration to put computer vision on lines that already have quality engineers — and to keep both parties speaking.
Digital & AI · Advanced Manufacturing
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Collaboration · South Wales / Midlands
Low-carbon rail sleeper trial
Swansea University · University of Leeds · industrial partners sought
A sleeper is not a white paper. This collaboration will put alternative mixes in the ground and see what the trains think.
Mobility & Infrastructure · Materials & Quantum · Advanced Manufacturing
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Collaboration · Glasgow / Cambridge / Harwell
Small satellite qualification consortium
University of Glasgow · Lumen Forge · Satellite Applications Catapult
Chamber slots, shared procedures, and an end to every small team writing the same thermal-vacuum document from scratch.
Space & Satellites · Advanced Manufacturing · Materials & Quantum
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Collaboration · Sheffield / Newcastle / participating sites
Industrial heat site data pool
Hearthline · Newcastle University · sites by invitation
Anonymised heat and electricity data from real factories, pooled so that integration studies stop starting from an annual average.
Clean Energy & Net Zero · Advanced Manufacturing · Digital & AI
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Work package · Sheffield
Design a hydrogen-ready combustor liner for a 2 MW industrial turbine
Hearthline · £40–70k
A liner that can live with hydrogen without becoming modern art. Thermal, materials and a drawing pack a foundry will not laugh at.
Clean Energy & Net Zero · Aerospace & Defence · Advanced Manufacturing
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Work package · Bristol / Filton area
Trial a confined-space inspection robot on a retired airframe
Quill Robotics · £22–38k
A wing that is no longer flying, a robot that would like to be trusted, and a defect set that is not a stock photograph.
Aerospace & Defence · Digital & AI · Advanced Manufacturing
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Work package · West Midlands
Integration study: 180 °C heat pump on a finishing line
Hearthline · £20–35k
A factory that still believes steam is a personality. We need a process-integration study that a finance director and a fitter can both survive.
Clean Energy & Net Zero · Advanced Manufacturing
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Work package · Leeds / two host sites
Independent validation of a supplier's defect-detection model
Plumbline · £18–30k
Somebody else's model, data it has never seen, and a number that will not please everyone. Short, unwelcome, occasionally decisive.
Digital & AI · Advanced Manufacturing
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Work package · Oxford / laboratory TBC
Bench validation of a point-of-care assay against a comparator method
Ridgeway Diagnostics · £25–40k
An accredited laboratory, a recognised comparator, and a dataset that will go into a regulatory submission. Precision matters more than speed here.
Life Sciences & MedTech · Advanced Manufacturing
What you can search
Five kinds of thing, described properly
- Boffins
Academic and industrial experts, each with what they are looking for, what they would decline, and a realistic notice period. Search a technique, a material or a problem rather than a job title.
- Organisations
Universities, research centres and startups, with the routes in — contract research, facility access, studentships, published packages — and an honest note on how to approach them.
- Equipment
Facilities with lead times, what to bring, what you leave with and what they cannot do. The limitations are frequently the most useful field on the page.
- Collaborations
Open working groups and shared studies, with the contribution expected, the return, the commitment in hours, and the data and intellectual property terms stated up front.
- Work packages
Scoped jobs with a budget band, a deadline, deliverables, evaluation criteria and milestones. Apply directly; the publisher reads it, not us.
Searching well
A few habits that help
- Search the problem, not the discipline. 'Coating failure' and 'remaining life' will find more than 'materials science'.
- Try a piece of kit. Tank, chamber, hangar, cleanroom and microscope all return facilities and the people who run them.
- Filter by domain when you want to browse and leave it open when you want to be surprised. Cross-domain results are frequently the useful ones.
- If a result looks nearly right, read the 'not for' or 'limitations' field before you write. It will save you a fortnight.
- Found nobody? Tell us what you searched for. A gap in the catalogue is more useful to us than a compliment.