Programme overview
The Technology Transfer Hub provides the proactive capability to exploit technology transfer and commercialisation opportunities from fusion into global markets and in doing so creates value in the UK.
It has three aims:
- Transfer technology from fusion into other sectors
- Transfer technology developed by the UKAEA to the wider fusion market
- Bring expertise and solutions from other sectors into fusion.
To achieve these objectives, the Technology Transfer Hub:
- Nurtures and accelerates innovations from the fusion programme that will demonstrate economic and scientific impact,
- Accelerates connections between research, commercial, and entrepreneurial communities and other Hubs, and,
- Builds partnerships and mechanisms to bridge any gaps in the pipeline from ideation to commercialisation.
How does the programme fit into Fusion Futures, UKAEA, and under DESNZ?
Why UKAEA is well placed:
- UKAEA works on all the enabling technologies necessary to build a fusion power plant. This breadth provides lots of opportunities to identify cross over benefits with other sectors as well as opportunities for commercialisation these enabling technologies to support the delivery of commercial power.
- As the UK’s national fusion laboratory, UKAEA, is perfectly placed to create networks and bring industry and academia together to help accelerate new ideas and support the creation of a fusion supply chain.
Goals of the Programme
Our goals are designed to guide the organisation towards the fulfilment of our innovation mission (“to establish UKAEA as a global hub of innovation excellence for and beyond fusion”). Two major strategic goals have been set:
Strategic Goal 1. Build World-class Innovation
We strive to elevate our organisation to a renowned innovation engine and a globally recognised hub of innovation for fusion and beyond. Embracing a high-risk appetite, we aim to enhance our innovation capabilities, fostering groundbreaking, novel ideas, and technologies in collaboration with external organisations. A goal is to turn Culham Campus into a world-class innovation ecosystem that accelerates UKAEA’s ultimate mission; to make commercial, viable, and sustainable fusion a reality. Simultaneously, we will seek and develop ideas that offer opportunities for technology transfer.
Strategic Goal 2. Deliver World-class Impact
It aims to demonstrate that public funding supporting the research and development for sustainable fusion energy can deliver substantial returns. The spill-over benefits include driving economic growth, industry advancement, creating job opportunities, development of new businesses, and achieving significant scientific and societal impacts both nationally and globally. It provides the necessary mechanisms to capitalise on technology transfer opportunities from fusion to a wide range of industries, both within and beyond national borders.
The below figure represents the alignment of the two strategic goals within our innovation framework, which encapsulates our focus on both building innovation and delivering impact:
Figure 1. Innovation framework.
This exhibit illustrates the innovation funnel, guiding ideas from conception to exploitation. Innovation projects, symbolised by light bulbs, undergo a de-risking process, advancing as they demonstrate both feasibility and market desirability. The funnel includes review gates to assess evidence, indicating that only a subset of projects ultimately reaches the exploitation stage.
Benefits of the programme
The benefits of the Technology Transfer Hub include:
- Demonstrating the near-term benefits of the fusion programme through impact into the wider economy. Supporting job growth and increased opportunities for UK industry through access to fusion knowledge assets. The capabilities within the Hub will increase the number and accelerate the impact of the technology transfer.
- Helping other sectors find solutions to their challenges through technology transfer, creating positive scientific, environmental, economic and social impacts through this flow of innovation.
- Accelerate the commercialisation of fusion energy through learning from other sectors identified through the network established to accelerate technology transfer.
- Support the creation of a fusion supply chain ready to deliver commercial fusion power through the commercialisation of fusion technologies.
What we offer
Technologies/patents available for licensing
Decades of dedicated research and development have yielded a substantial portfolio of intellectual property. Our collection encompasses a diverse array of innovative technologies, methodologies, and inventions that have demonstrated remarkable success in the field of fusion. These solutions are adaptable across various industries and sectors, as evidenced by our successful implementations in numerous cases.
A few examples of areas of technologies/patents available for licensing include:
- Robotics and remote handling
- Materials design, evaluation and modelling
- Multi-load modelling
- Thermal management
- Instrumentation and control
- Specialist manufacturing methods
- Monitoring, tracking, and optimisation of computer simulations
Get in touch to know more about our current available technologies for licensing.
Secondments opportunities
The Technology Transfer Hub would like to talk to organisations interested in working with us to identify technology transfer opportunities and the routes to generate the most impact. One route would be through inward or outward secondments to work with diverse expertise to support the assessment of the technologies.
Get in touch to know more about current opportunities.
Open-source Software
See below the link to the public UKAEA Open-source software repositories:
Contact Information
Please get in touch if you are:
- A private company interested in learning more about our IP assets or in a collaboration or if you think your technology might be used in fusion
-
Someone with ideas on how to apply our technologies to different sectors and interested in a collaboration
Address:
Innovation, Culham Science Centre, Abingdon, OX14 3DB, UK.
Email:
innovation@ukaea.uk
