The UK is currently at the forefront of the Marine Renewable Energy (MRE) sector, with almost 200 MW of installed capacity of wave and tidal stream projects, that are either operational, under construction or in development. Furthermore, the first floating offshore wind farm is being built off the coast of Scotland. In order to realise the potential of MRE to achieve the targets set by the Government and keep the UK's leading position; the sector needs to address some relevant technical, environmental and interdisciplinary challenges. A coordinated response from different actors at national and regional level is required in order to successfully face these challenges. In an attempt to provide this coordination and with an initial focus on the South west of the UK, the Partnership for Research In Marine Renewable Energy (PRIMaRE) was established, bringing together research expertise and access to facilities for MRE developments. PRIMaRE comprises the Universities of Plymouth, Exeter, Southampton, Bristol and Bath, along with the Marine Biological Association and Plymouth Marine Laboratory. Completing the line-up of PRIMaRE is the South West Marine Energy Park and the Wave Hub facilities, acting as conduits between the research community and industry. More recently, PRIMaRE has extended its borders both nationally and internationally by including the Universities of Uppsala, Cardiff and Cranfield as associated partners of PRIMaRE. The core partner institutions have signed up to a partnership agreement to work together on research across the spectrum of MRE and to establish a 'network of excellence' centred in the South of the UK. PRIMaRE has established the annual conference (now in its third year) to showcase the research and provide a forum for discussion with MRE industry and academia, and have organised industry oriented workshops to identify research priorities in order to align research efforts with the requirements of the MRE sector. With the support of the EPSRC Network Grant, PRIMaRE aims to expand the partnership to a new level, making active and effective contributions to the challenges of the MRE sector. The Network brings together academic effort on MRE challenges, but also given the nascent state of the industry, aims to work closely with supply chain and industry partners, by providing training and a forum for sharing and exchange of ideas and through access to academic expertise and facilities. Unlike the academic focus of doctoral training schemes, the proposed network aspires to a broad sector approach, in which training and research collaborations are promoted both for conventional research and academic staff (i.e., post-docs, researchers, academics, PhD students) and for industry staff (developers, supply chain, test centres, regional government agencies). The proposed network has four main pillars of focus: (i) the annual PRIMaRE conference, expanded to become a key National and International event for the sector; (ii) the Key Challenge Workshops, an industry oriented dynamic and proactive forum to ensure alignment of PRIMaRE research priorities, and to focus on key emerging challenges requiring special attention; (iii) travel grants, which are crucial to ensure knowledge transfer and to promote the required mobility between academia and industry needed to develop new research collaborations nationally and internationally; and (iv) the PRIMaRE summer school, a continuing professional development (CPD) high level programme, providing the mechanism for exchange of knowledge between the research, academia, the novel MRE industry and wider sector.

The UK is leading the development and installation of offshore renewable energy technologies. With over 13GW of installed offshore wind capacity and another 3GW under construction, two operational and one awarded floating offshore demonstration projects as well as Contracts for Difference awards for four tidal energy projects, offshore renewable energy will provide the backbone of the Net Zero energy system, giving energy security, green growth and jobs in the UK. The revised UK targets that underpin the Energy Security Strategy seek to grow offshore wind capacity to 50 GW, with up to 5 GW floating offshore wind by 2030. Further acceleration is envisaged beyond 2030 with targets of around 150 GW anticipated for 2050. To achieve these levels of deployment, ORE developments need to move beyond current sites to more challenging locations in deeper water, further from shore, while the increasing pace of deployment introduces major challenges in consenting, manufacture and installation. These are ambitious targets that will require strategic innovation and research to achieve the necessary technology acceleration while ensuring environmental sustainability and societal acceptance. The role of the Supergen ORE Hub 2023 builds on the academic and scientific networks, traction with industry and policymakers and the reputation for research leadership established in the Supergen ORE Hub 2018. The new hub will utilise existing and planned research outcomes to accelerate the technology development, collaboration and industry uptake for commercial ORE developments. The Supergen ORE Hub strategy will focus on delivering impact and knowledge transfer, underpinned by excellent research, for the benefit of the wider sector, providing research and development for the economic and social benefit of the UK. Four mechanisms for leverage are envisaged to accelerate the ORE expansion: Streamlining ORE projects, by accelerating planning, consenting and build out timescales; upscaling the ORE workforce, increasing the scale and efficiency of ORE devices and system; enhanced competitiveness, maximising ORE local content and ORE economic viability in the energy portfolio; whilst ensuring sustainability, yielding positive environmental and social benefits from ORE. The research programme is built around five strategic workstreams, i) ORE expansion - policy and scenarios , ii) Data for ORE design and decision-making, iii) ORE modelling, iv) ORE design methods and v) Future ORE systems and concepts, which will be delivered through a combination of core research to tackle sector wide challenges in a holistic and synergistic manner, strategic projects to address emerging sector challenges and flexible funding to deliver targeted projects addressing focussed opportunities. Supergen Representative Systems will be established as a vehicle for academic and industry community engagement to provide comparative reference cases for assessing applicability of modelling tools and approaches, emerging technology and data processing techniques. The Supergen ORE Hub outputs, research findings and sector progress will be communicated through directed networking, engagement and dissemination activities for the range of academic, industry and policy and governmental stakeholders, as well as the wider public. Industry leverage will be achieved through new co-funding mechanisms, including industry-funded flexible funding calls, direct investment into research activities and the industry-funded secondment of researchers, with >53% industry plus >23% HEI leverage on the EPSRC investment at proposal stage. The Hub will continue and expand its role in developing and sustaining the pipeline of talent flowing into research and industry by integrating its ECR programme with Early Career Industrialists and by enhancing its programme of EDI activities to help deliver greater diversity within the sector and to promote ORE as a rewarding and accessible career for all.

A consortium of the Universities of Edinburgh, Exeter, Strathclyde and Swansea supported by the Scottish Association for Marine Science (SAMS) will run the Industrial Centre for Doctoral Training for Offshore Renewable Energy (IDCORE). This partnership offers a unique combination of experience in research, development and knowledge-exchange with major industry stakeholders in the Offshore Renewable Energy (ORE) sector. This is complemented by the extensive experience with ORE projects of both SAMS, in the environmental and societal impacts, and the Fraser of Allander Institute (Strathclyde), in macro- and micro-economics. The large scale deployment of ORE technologies is key to the UK achieving its net-zero carbon energy objectives while, at the same time, delivering secure, reliable and affordable energy. Both of these objectives must be achieved with minimal environmental impact. This requires the continuing development of new techniques and technologies to design, build, install, operate, and maintain energy generating machines in a hostile marine environment. Successful ORE projects must be affordable and minimise their environmental impact. Success will create green jobs at all levels in coastal communities across the UK and generate significant economic impact. The ORE sector, which includes companies ranging from world-leading technology development SMEs (like Orbital Marine Energy and MOcean Energy) through to international energy companies as well as engineering majors, consulting engineers and project developers, is creating a massive demand for highly trained scientists and engineers with a broad skill base. The consortium is ideally-placed to support the industry in meeting these challenges through a conjoined infrastructure, which begins in some of the best academic research centres with leading test facilities and extends through a unique combination of demonstration facilities, ultimately to test and deployment sites. IDCORE will conduct internationally leading research, provide a vibrant training environment and deliver a body of high-quality post-doctoral staff for the sector. This proposal presents a revised training programme in response to changes in the sector (particularly the rapid growth of offshore wind, the commercialisation of tidal stream energy, and the drive to develop floating wind systems for deeper water). It also includes Swansea University for the first time, strengthening our links to developments in the Celtic Sea and bringing significant expertise in computational modelling and aerodynamics. IDCORE provides a solid background in professional, technical and transferable skills to a diverse cohort of students drawn from a wide variety of STEM backgrounds. It is designed to deliver a tightly-knit cohort of highly-skilled graduates, forming a strong foundation for the future development of the sector. Our training is innovative and multi-disciplinary, using a variety of delivery methods and unique facilities, including: the Kelvin hydrodynamics lab, FastBlade, the FloWave Ocean Energy Research Facility, offshore measurement systems (Wave and ADCP measurement array and surveying), the South West Mooring Test Facility, accelerated fatigue testing facilities (DMAC), survey vessels and field study areas. Through established links with partner organisations including the ORE Catapult and the European Marine Energy Centre (EMEC), students will be placed and, wherever possible, site-trained in large-scale test facilities, prototype demonstration and small-farm demonstration sites. The training will also benefit from the extensive experience of the consortium in advanced engineering analysis and simulation, and access to UK-leading computational facilities. The training package offered by the centre provides our students with unparalleled engineering experience in applied offshore renewable energy R&D.