Manufacturing productivity gets £30m boost

R&D projects aimed at boosting manufacturing productivity could receive a windfall following the launch of a £30-million digital technologies competition as part of the government’s Industrial Strategy Challenge Fund.

The competition, which opened on 22 July, is the first under the fund’s Manufacturing Made Smarter challenge, which aims to encourage the development of digital technologies that can be used in manufacturing.

Mark Walport, chief executive of the umbrella funding agency UK Research and Innovation, said the challenge would “boost the productivity of UK manufacturing by encouraging the adoption of digital technologies across a wide range of sectors”.