Our work

Great British Chemicals will make, collate and translate knowledge from research on defossilising the chemicals value chain across technologies, policy, energy and industrial systems, to deliver impact in partnership with industry, civic bodies, national government and the third sector ensuring a strong economy, and an improved environment, which is fair, and creates inclusive opportunities

Our collaborative streams

Our centre will consider the whole system, from resource collection through to the end of life for the chemicals and products produced. This is a large scope with a team of world-leading research institutions and individuals working towards a common goal. Our work is divided broadly across 4 major collaborative streams.

Moonshot

Digitally accelerating innovation cycles of emerging technology

Catalysis will be critical in transforming the UK chemicals industry to employ a sustainable, diverse, and dynamic range of non-fossil carbon feedstocks. Moving away from the current fossil-petrochemical sectors requires new catalytic pathways to be established and evaluated, and existing processes re-optimised to cope with impurity and variation in circular feedstocks. To deliver a prosperous transition to net-zero and maximise its opportunities, significant technical, scientific, and economic barriers must be addressed.

Our highly ambitious “Moonshot” will focus on transforming “Waste to X”. The availability of future feedstocks will be dynamic: there is no single feedstock as a “drop-in” alternative. Our target mix consists of CO₂, biomass and waste polymers, yet this will evolve as technologies evolve across sectors.

The Work Streams

Scaling technologies (CCU and process intensification)

Our Work Streams are demonstration projects at mid-TRL level, following waste hierarchy principles: prevention, reuse and recycling. Click the links below to learn more

WS1 Carbon Capture: purified CO₂ from real flue gas

WS2: CO₂ Us e

WS3: CO₂ Utilisation

The Function Streams

Validating Sustainability

Cross-cutting Function Streams will focus on

1. Horizon scanning for FlexFund interventions;

2. Development and implementation of assessment tools;

3. Upskilling the workforce to adapt to new processes and standards; developing and supporting Entrepreneurship through mentoring and education to identify potential start-up companies.

Together, this will ensure that UK PLC is ready for the transition to Net Zero, greater Resource Efficiency, and compliance with current and evolving legislation. These technology-agnostic streams take a whole systems approach and are centred around three pillars, underpinning all the work of Great British Chemicals.

View more about our Function Streams

The Flex Fund

For agile innovation

Collaborative research across multiple sectors will be the key to our success. We will invite collaborative research and innovation projects focussing on accelerating the scale-up and deployment of novel and existing technologies. The calls will be open to UK academics with the aim of promoting partnerships between academia, industry, the public sector and non-profit organisations.

Please see our dedicated FlexFund page for further information and notice of current and upcoming funding calls.

How we work

Great British Chemicals takes a collaborative and international approach, keeping the global context in mind while focusing on real social, environmental, technological, and economic benefits of the net zero transition. Our UK-wide Centre of 10 founding universities is developing scalable, low-emission technologies and advance sustainable practices through research and engagement with stakeholders. To deliver a prosperous transition to net-zero and maximise its opportunities, significant technical, scientific, and economic barriers must be addressed.

Great British Chemicals is a framework to catalyse bold and disruptive solutions that defossilise the chemical industry, demonstrates the environmental, social, and economic value of circular chemistry, and fosters a culture of risk-taking, collaboration, and evidence-based impact. We conduct holistic multi-disciplinary research that addresses the complexity of the challenge in both integrating renewable feedstock into the value chain and meeting needs from the diverse range of Stakeholders. We are working collaboratively with target industries to harness captured CO₂, recycled carbon, and resources from renewable waste, in co-created research projects. We target the foundation chemicals within the existing petrochemical industries and the transition to a new, circular chemicals supply chain, to maximise the opportunities from net-zero. The involvement of partners in the Centre is key to ensuring research is embedded with Stakeholders, including businesses, policymakers, consumers and society, the third sector and other affected groups and communities, at every part of the programme. We’re also investing in people, especially early-career researchers, under-represented voices and technical professionals, through training, mentoring, and entrepreneurship support.

Stakeholder engagement runs through the life of the Centre. This includes close interactions with sectors directly linked to the Centre and broader interactions with wider communities via our Stakeholder Forum, an inclusive programme of virtual and physical activities. Stakeholders can benefit from direct access to emerging technologies and to the broad and extensive expertise of our members. As GBC develops, the Centre will be expanded to include new members that add value to the project via our FlexFund.