Catapult centres


Catapult centres are organisations set up from 2011 onwards by Innovate UK in the United Kingdom to promote research and development through business-led collaboration between scientists and engineers to exploit market opportunities. They receive grants from public funds but are also expected to seek commercial funding.

History

In 2010, the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills commissioned a report into technical innovation from Hermann Hauser, an entrepreneur who had been active in information technology since 1978. The report recommended the establishment of a number of Technology and Innovation Centres.
Each centre received "core" funding of £10 million per year for five years, via the Technology Strategy Board. Since 2018, Innovate UK has been a council of United Kingdom Research and Innovation, a non-departmental public body.
It was intended that the long-term split would be one-third core funding, one-third commercial funding, and one-third collaborative research & development funding.

Centres

The current centres, with their operational dates and locations, are as follows.
In view of the completion of the five-year funding periods for the first centres, the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy commissioned a report from Ernst & Young which was published in November 2017.
The report found that approximately £1.25 billion had been received by the centres, of which about £745 million came from the public sector. Of the then established Catapult centres, only the High Value Manufacturing Catapult had achieved its funding targets, with the others heavily reliant on public funding. The report criticised the strategies, governance and performance management of most of the centres, and made 38 recommendations. Three centres – Digital, Future Cities and Transport Systems – were identified as in need of remedial plans, with the possibility of halting their further funding.

2018 funding

In August 2018, the government announced funding totalling £780 million to be provided to several of the centres, over the next five years.