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 30 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 · Manchester
Dr Idris Okonkwo
Reader in Quantum Sensing · The University of Manchester
Builds sensors that notice things the rest of us walk past. Particularly good at taking a laboratory miracle outdoors without it sulking.
Materials & Quantum · Digital & AI · Aerospace & Defence
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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 · Cambridge
Prof. Rajesh Nair
Professor of Photonic Systems · University of Cambridge
Puts light to work. Satellites, factories, and the occasional stubborn biomedical problem all look the same to a well-behaved waveguide.
Space & Satellites · Digital & AI · Materials & Quantum
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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 · 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 · Leeds
Prof. Nkechi Adeyemi
Professor of Infrastructure Asset Management · University of Leeds
Decides whether a Victorian structure has another twenty years in it. Evidence for deferral, or the argument for acting now.
Mobility & Infrastructure · Materials & Quantum · Digital & AI
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Boffin · Cambridge
Professor Tuomas Knowles
1920 Professor of Physical Chemistry · University of Cambridge
Leads work on the physical chemistry and kinetics of biomolecular assembly at Cambridge Chemistry and the Cavendish.
Life Sciences & MedTech · Materials & Quantum · Digital & AI
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Organisation · South Kensington
Imperial College London
university
A university that treats engineering as a calling and London as a laboratory. Strong on energy, aerostructures, and the sort of student who builds things at weekends.
Aerospace & Defence · Clean Energy & Net Zero · Digital & AI · Materials & Quantum
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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 · Oxfordshire
Culham Centre for Fusion Energy
research centre
Where the country keeps its tokamaks and its patience. Fusion is a long game; Culham plays it with instruments.
Clean Energy & Net Zero · Materials & Quantum · Digital & AI
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Organisation · Teddington
National Physical Laboratory
research centre
The country's official grown-up about measurement. If you cannot measure it, NPL will not let you pretend.
Materials & Quantum · Digital & AI · Space & Satellites · Life Sciences & MedTech
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Organisation · Bloomsbury
University College London
university
A large Bloomsbury university with a teaching hospital across the road. Unusually good at the awkward distance between a laboratory and a ward.
Life Sciences & MedTech · Digital & AI · Materials & Quantum · Mobility & Infrastructure
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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 · Cambridge
Lumen Forge
startup
A small team building photonic payloads that fit in a CubeSat and a budget. Less swagger than the slides next door; more photons per gram.
Space & Satellites · Digital & AI · Materials & Quantum
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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 · Teddington
Time & Quantum Measurement Labs
National Physical Laboratory
Clocks, sensors, and the official British opinion on what time it is. If your device claims a stability, this is where that claim grows up.
Materials & Quantum · Space & Satellites · Digital & AI
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Equipment · Cambridge
Photonics cleanroom
University of Cambridge
A cleanroom that still believes in yield. Waveguides, detectors, and the packaging that decides whether they leave the building.
Space & Satellites · Materials & Quantum · Digital & AI
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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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Collaboration · Derby
Hydrogen combustor materials — a grown-up roundtable
Independent · hosted with Derby industrial fellows
A closed, unshowy working group on liner alloys, coatings and the things that crack when the flame is too keen.
Aerospace & Defence · Clean Energy & Net Zero · Materials & Quantum
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Collaboration · Teddington / Manchester
Traceable quantum magnetometry in the field
NPL · The University of Manchester
Taking a laboratory magnetometer into a field, a hangar, or a slightly magnetic van, and still knowing what the number means.
Materials & Quantum · Aerospace & Defence
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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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Work package · Swansea
Characterise graphene-enhanced concrete for rail sleepers
Swansea University partners · £25–45k
Mixes, coupons, and the difference between a press release and a sleeper. Freeze–thaw, fatigue, and a report a track engineer can read.
Mobility & Infrastructure · Materials & Quantum
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Work package · Cambridge / facility TBC
Thermal-vacuum campaign for a 6U photonic payload
Lumen Forge · £18–32k
Book the chamber, write the procedure, and do not cook the optics. We have a payload. We need a grown-up campaign.
Space & Satellites · Materials & Quantum
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Work package · Teddington / host hangar
Field survey: quantum magnetometer in an aircraft hangar
National Physical Laboratory partners · £15–28k
Hangars are magnetic in all the wrong ways. We need a host site and a team that can survey without shutting the airport.
Materials & Quantum · Aerospace & Defence
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Work package · North of England
Remaining-life assessment of a masonry viaduct
Regional infrastructure asset owner · £45–80k
A nineteenth-century structure, a renewal programme that cannot afford it yet, and a question that has to be answered with evidence rather than instinct.
Mobility & Infrastructure · Materials & Quantum
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.