Industrial Biotechnology (IB) is entering a golden age of opportunity. Technological and scientific advances in biotechnology have revolutionised our ability to synthesise molecules of choice, giving access to novel chemistries that enable tuneable selectivity and the use of benign reaction conditions. These developments can now be coupled to advances in the industrialisation of biology to generate innovative manufacturing routes, supported by high throughput and real-time analytics, process automation, artificial intelligence and data-driven science. The current excess energy demands of manufacturing and its use of expensive and resource intensive materials can no longer be tolerated. Impacts on climate change (carbon emissions), societal health (toxic waste streams, pollution) and the environment (depletion of precious resources, waste accumulation) are well documented and unsustainable. What is clear is that a petrochemical-dependent economy cannot support the rate at which we consume goods and the demand we place on cheap and easily accessible materials. The emergent bioeconomy, which fosters resource efficiency and reduced reliance on fossil resources, promises to free society from many of the shortcomings of current manufacturing practices. By harnessing the power of biology through innovative IB, the FBRH will support the development of safer, cleaner and greener manufacturing supply chains. This is at the core of the UKs Clean Growth strategy. The EPSRC Future Biomanufacturing Research Hub (FBRH) will deliver biomanufacturing processes to support the rapid emergence of the bioeconomy and to place the UK at the forefront of global economic Clean Growth in key manufacturing sectors - pharmaceuticals; value-added chemicals; engineering materials. The FBRH will be a biomanufacturing accelerator, coordinating UK academic, HVM catapult, and industrial capabilities to enable the complete biomanufacturing innovation pipeline to deliver economic, robust and scalable bioprocesses to meet societal and commercial demand. The FBRH has developed a clear strategy to achieve this vision. This strategy addresses the need to change the economic reality of biomanufacturing by addressing the entire manufacturing lifecycle, by considering aspects such as scale-up, process intensification, continuous manufacturing, integrated and whole-process modelling. The FBRH will address the urgent need to quickly deliver new biocatalysts, robust industrial hosts and novel production technologies that will enable rapid transition from proof-of-concept to manufacturing at scale. The emphasis is on predictable deployment of sustainable and innovative biomanufacturing technologies through integrated technology development at all scales of production, harnessing UK-wide world-leading research expertise and frontier science and technology, including data-driven AI approaches, automation and new technologies emerging from the 'engineering of biology'. The FBRH will have its Hub at the Manchester Institute of Biotechnology at The University of Manchester, with Spokes at the Innovation and Knowledge Centre for Synthetic Biology (Imperial College London), Advanced Centre for Biochemical Engineering (University College London), the Bioprocess, Environmental and Chemical Technologies Group (Nottingham University), the UK Catalysis Hub (Harwell), the Industrial Biotechnology Innovation Centre (Glasgow) and the Centre for Process Innovation (Wilton). This collaborative approach of linking the UK's leading IB centres that hold complementary expertise together with industry will establish an internationally unique asset for UK manufacturing.

The EPSRC CDT in Integrated Catalysis (iCAT) will train students in process-engineering, chemical catalysis, and biological catalysis, connecting these disciplines in a way that will transform the way molecules are made. Traditionally, PhD students are trained in either chemocatalysis (using chemical catalysts such as metal salts) or biocatalysis (using enzymes), but very rarely both, a situation that is no longer tenable given the demands of industry to rapidly produce new products based on chemical synthesis. Graduate engineers and scientists entering the chemical industry now need to have the skills and agility to work across a far broader base of catalysis - iCAT will meet this challenge by training the next generation of interdisciplinary scientists and engineers who are comfortable working in both bio and chemo catalysis regimes, and can exploit their synergies for the discovery and production of molecules essential to society. iCAT features world-leading chemistry and engineering groups advancing the state-of-the-art in bio and chemo catalysis, with an outstanding track record in PhD training. The CDT will be managed by a strong and experienced team with guidance from a distinguished membership of an International Advisory Group. The rich portfolio of interdisciplinary CDT projects will feature blue-sky research blended in with more problem-solving studies across scientific themes such as supramolecular-assisted catalysis using molecular machines, directed evolution and biosynthetic engineering for synthesis, and process integration of chemo and bio-catalysis for sustainable synthesis. The iCAT training structure has been co-developed with industry end-users to create a state-of-the-art training centre at the University of Manchester, equipping PhD students with the skills and industrial experience needed to develop new catalytic processes that meet the stringent standards of a future sustainable chemicals industry in the UK. This chemical industry is world-class and a crucial industrial sector for the UK, providing significant numbers of jobs and creating wealth (currently contributing £15 billion of added value each year to our economy). The industry relies first and foremost on skilled researchers with the ability to design and build, using catalysis, molecules with well-defined properties to produce the drugs, agrochemicals, polymers, speciality chemicals of the future. iCAT will deliver this new breed of scientist / engineer that the UK requires, involving industry in the design and provision of training, and dovetailing with other EPSRC-, University-, and Industry-led initiatives in the research landscape.