About

Academia

Provide solutions to the Hub from R&D

Supplies experts and equipment to Hub-run projects

Provides specialised training for industry

Industry

Works with the Hub to set real-world challenges

Provides experts and equipment to Hub-run projects

Provides capabilities into the supply chain drawn together by the Hub

Our Vision

To provide UK plc with the experts, equipment and advice needed to bring their offerings to market, exploiting the potential of metamaterial solutions.

Our Purpose

The Metamaterials Innovation Hub (MIH) partners each have a long track-record in materials science projects, and have previously worked on numerous metamaterials-related exploitation projects.

By working together we are sharing our experts, equipment and contacts to provide a clear route for UK industry to bring their metamaterials technologies into use, solving customer’s challenges.

QinetiQ is an international company of scientists and engineers committed to listening, understanding and responding to our customers' needs. This enables us to use our depth of experience and our unique science and engineering expertise to equip them with powerful solutions to their most pressing challenges, from generating initial ideas through to the release of new products into the market.

QinetiQ has a keen interest in materials technologies that can solve our customers’ challenges, in areas as diverse as antenna design, sensing, acoustic control, packaging, vehicle design and camouflage. Metamaterials offer new possibilities, extending the palette of materials properties, and are hence of interest to many of our clients.

8,459

Employees focused around R&D

UK sites including research laboratories and testing areas

Top 3

Largest UKRI investments in metamaterials research lead or co-lead by Exeter University.

Fastest growing world-class research impact in the Russell Group

The University of Exeter is a leading research-intensive Russell Group institution, committed to maintaining and delivering the very best research, teaching and learning. We create real and lasting impact, by working with organisations of all types and sizes on their innovation journey.

Academics from our Centre for Metamaterials Research and Innovation (CMRI) are internationally pioneering in this rapidly developing field, and we lead or co-lead the three largest UKRI investments in metamaterials research in the UK: the UK Metamaterials Network, Meta4D and MetaHub.

We believe that excellence in research and impactful science comes from great collaboration, networking and training. We offer taught programmes and short courses that can be designed specifically for your organisation, led by our top academics from engineering, the physical sciences and management. Our research training programmes (including PhDs) have a hugely successful track record in delivering a pipeline of future leaders for industry and academia.

Our long-standing experience in working with industrial partners in ICT, energy, healthcare, and defence & security sectors enables us to provide fit-for-purpose research collaborations, utilising our state-of-the- art facilities to enable simulation, measurement, and fabrication of metamaterials and metamaterial-based devices. With expertise spanning electromagnetism (from visible and infra-red through to THz and microwave), acoustics and fluidics, the materials we work with have wide application, e.g. imaging, sensing and spectroscopy, acoustic and RF signature reduction, efficient computing and future telecoms, energy storage, harvesting and generation.

The National Physical Laboratory (NPL) is the UK’s National Metrology Institute, developing and maintaining the national primary measurement standards. Metrology accelerates the innovation of emerging technologies, including metamaterials, by providing confidence in new materials, manufacturing processes and products. As a public sector research establishment, we deliver extraordinary impact by providing the measurement capability that underpins the UK’s prosperity and quality of life.

In this digital age, our world-leading measurement science provides confidence in data, which enables innovation and international trade to flourish. We align our capabilities with the most important national challenges like energy, health, security, net zero and the prosperity of the nation, and lead major national programmes that deliver impact across the UK.

Our measurement capabilities cover the range of the physical sciences, covering measurement requirements across mechanical to photonic and electromagnetic metamaterials. We develop the metrology required to ensure the timely and successful deployment of new technologies and work with organisations as they develop and test new products and processes, whether that be the development of new measurement methods, quality control processes, standardised protocols or solving measurement challenges for different types of material properties.

Credit: NPL

125

years supporting business growth, innovation and impact through science.

350

World class laboratories covering diverse disciplines