Our expertise by industrial application sector
Industry, governmental, and other external funding institutions
Our long-standing experience in working with industrial partners in ICT, energy, healthcare, and defence & security sectors enables us to provide fit-for-purpose collaborations, adjusted to the needs of a variety of businesses, from SMEs to large companies.
Typically, we offer
- academic input for new ideas to tackle next generation innovation by way of a consultancy arrangement;
- short term-contract research to explore the feasibility of these new ideas;
- collaboration through Knowledge Transfer Partnerships (KTPs);
- PhD studentships for 4 year projects and workforce development support.
We collaborate with a variety of different industry partners to develop projects that are costed appropriately with regards to their Technology Readiness Level (TRL). We can work with you to determine the appropriate structure for your project that benefits both the company and the University, whilst recognising the importance of State Aid¹.
Please get in touch with us via metamaterials@exeter.ac.uk to discuss how we can help you to drive forward your research targets, upskill your current employees and give you exposure to the next generation of scientists.
See also our selection of project ideas that are currently in our pipeline.
***
¹UK Universities are subject to State Aid regulations for any project they undertake which has an element of direct or indirect public funding. We work effectively with our legal and business engagement teams to accommodate these legal requirements in a professional manner.
Our priority as a manufacturing company is to apply our expertise and processes to sell composite components and structures. We balance this priority of business survival with our desire to innovate and explore opportunities – incorporated in our strategy of innovation through managed risk. Innovating is fun but a risky business for a small company as it diverts resource away from production activities, with no guarantee of return on investment – especially in the short term. Our commitment to innovating and novel ideas led us to contact the Prof Alastair Hibbins and his team at the University of Exeter. The team were very approachable and initial discussions were straight forward, enjoyable, and informative.
The team at Exeter were very open in their approach to problem solving and delivered theoretical and experimental results that exceeded our expectations (and those of the project). The outcome for TCS was a new product that passed all qualification testing and a physical demonstrator that we could show and discuss with interested parties. We also thoroughly enjoyed the opportunity to integrate physics with engineering and learn the fundamentals from experts in the field. TCS has been able to disseminate our work at conferences, UK Knowledge Transfer Networks, Special interest groups and social media channels. This has significant raised our profile as a small manufacturing company and led to ongoing projects and discussions with new customers. TCS has appointed new staff, received strong commercial enquiries and increased turnover because of our work with Exeter.
Formed in 2016, Technical composite systems (TCS) is a small to medium enterprise based in south Devon UK. Managing Director Mike Sloan and the team provide manufacturing and design services to the international community using advanced materials and processes, primarily for the aerospace and defence sectors.