Henry Royce Institute Oxford Road, Manchester M13 9PL

"Nice building."

"Nice"

"The Henry Royce Institute (often referred to as ‘Royce’) is the UK’s national institute for advanced materials research and innovation. Its vision is to identify challenges and to stimulate innovation in advanced materials research to support sustainable growth and development. Royce aims to be a "single front door" to the UK’s materials research community. Its stated mission is to “support world-recognised excellence in UK materials research, accelerating commercial exploitation of innovations, and delivering positive economic and societal impact for the UK.” Operating with its Hub at the University of Manchester, Royce is a partnership of nine leading UK institutions. It is a hub and spoke collaboration between the University of Manchester (the hub), National Nuclear Laboratory, UK Atomic Energy Authority, Imperial College London, University of Cambridge, University of Leeds, University of Liverpool, University of Oxford and the University of Sheffield. In 2014, Chancellor George Osborne announced the launch of the Henry Royce Institute for advanced materials science in his Autumn Statement in 2014. He pledged "a quarter of a billion" to support his proposals from June 2014 on creating a Northern Powerhouse. Royce was then established through a grant from the Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council (EPSRC), which has been used to fund construction and refurbishment of buildings, equipment, and research and technical staff. Royce now coordinates over 900 academics and over £300 million in facilities, "providing a joined-up framework that can deliver beyond the current capabilities of individual partners or research teams.” Royce is one of the EPSRC's four major research institutes, the other three being: The Alan Turing Institute in data science; the Faraday Institution in battery science and technology; and the Rosalind Franklin Institute, which focuses on transforming life science through interdisciplinary research and technology development. These institutes represent a total financial investment of around £478 million and reflect the EPSRC’s vision and objectives ("to deliver economic impact and social prosperity; to realise the potential of engineering and physical sciences research; and to enable the UK engineering and physical sciences landscape to deliver"). The Henry Royce Institute is named after Sir Frederick Henry Royce OBE, a British engineer famous for his designs of car and airplane engines. Henry Royce manufactured his first car in Manchester in 1904, and in 1906 co-founded Rolls-Royce."