Tackling industrial emissions is essential for the UK to deliver on its climate commitments and achieving economic and social prosperity from the transition to net zero. IDRIC was established in 2021 as part of the UKRI Industrial Decarbonisation Challenge to support the decarbonisation of industrial clusters. During this time, IDRIC has developed an influential and impactful network at a critical time and become an essential catalyst bringing together the research and innovation community to accelerate the pace and scale of industrial cluster decarbonisation. Funding for current IDRIC activities will cease in Spring 2024. However, the need for the functions IDRIC is delivering - the research work plus bringing together the relevant players in an environment that allows and encourages trust and collaboration, reduces barriers and accelerates progress - will continue for decades. The UK needs to take long term, multi-decadal decisions to providing long term commitment for industry emission reductions into the 2030s and IDRIC is exceptionally well placed to lead EPSRC activity towards the delivery of the UK's Industrial Decarbonisation Strategy. This proposal represents funding for a 12-month transitional period (April-2024 to March-2025), which will be crucial to support IDRIC in maintaining essential momentum and the community cohesion necessary to safeguard the knowledge, experience and relationships built at this critical time for industrial decarbonisation. The objectives have been co-created with industry and academia building upon the established sense of belonging and the long-term relationships and associated trust required to deliver: Continue to synthesise and disseminate learnings and impacts from the cluster focussed, challenge-led research delivered in 2021-2024. Foresight and horizon-scan of industry-informed research and innovation needs of decarbonisation to deliver towards targets of 2030, 2040 and 2050. Co-create and share knowledge by maintaining active networks and platforms to stimulate cross-learning and engender national/international collaborations for developing net zero solutions. Support policy, skills development and mission advocacy by providing evidence to policymakers, regulators, industry, the wider supply chain and the public to promote decarbonisation. To date, IDRIC have carefully considered that continued engagement is critical and also dependent on stakeholders gaining ongoing strategic benefit from their interaction. This has been key to IDRIC's current success, as shown by bringing together relevant players in an environment that allows and encourages trust and collaboration, reduces barriers and accelerates progress. Therefore, with this 12-month funding we will be prioritising key stakeholder engagement that are aligned with 3 workstreams; Clusters & Partnerships; KE & Synthesis; Cross-cutting Themes (Policy, Skills, EDI). The activities for this phase of IDRIC are designed to utilise IDRIC's unique convening power. They will deliver a suite of outputs e.g. (frontiers report, industry net-zero innovation roadmap) scoped through engagement with the community to ensure maximum impact from the current phase and strategic activities in support of a mapping a clear path for the critical steps required from 2025-2030 - crucial to enabling the realisation of the UKs first net-zero cluster by 2030.

The Transforming the Foundation Industries Challenge has set out the background of the six foundation industries; cement, ceramics, chemicals, glass, metals and paper, which produce 28 Mt pa (75% of all materials in our economy) with a value of £52Bn but also create 10% of UK CO2 emissions. These materials industries are the root of all supply chains providing fundamental products into the industrial sector, often in vertically-integrated fashion. They have a number of common factors: they are water, resource and energy-intensive, often needing high temperature processing; they share processes such as grinding, heating and cooling; they produce high-volume, often pernicious waste streams, including heat; and they have low profit margins, making them vulnerable to energy cost changes and to foreign competition. Our Vision is to build a proactive, multidisciplinary research and practice driven Research and Innovation Hub that optimises the flows of all resources within and between the FIs. The Hub will work with communities where the industries are located to assist the UK in achieving its Net Zero 2050 targets, and transform these industries into modern manufactories which are non-polluting, resource efficient and attractive places to be employed. TransFIRe is a consortium of 20 investigators from 12 institutions, 49 companies and 14 NGO and government organisations related to the sectors, with expertise across the FIs as well as energy mapping, life cycle and sustainability, industrial symbiosis, computer science, AI and digital manufacturing, management, social science and technology transfer. TransFIRe will initially focus on three major challenges: 1 Transferring best practice - applying "Gentani": Across the FIs there are many processes that are similar, e.g. comminution, granulation, drying, cooling, heat exchange, materials transportation and handling. Using the philosophy Gentani (minimum resource needed to carry out a process) this research would benchmark and identify best practices considering resource efficiencies (energy, water etc.) and environmental impacts (dust, emissions etc.) across sectors and share information horizontally. 2 Where there's muck there's brass - creating new materials and process opportunities. Key to the transformation of our Foundation Industries will be development of smart, new materials and processes that enable cheaper, lower-energy and lower-carbon products. Through supporting a combination of fundamental research and focused technology development, the Hub will directly address these needs. For example, all sectors have material waste streams that could be used as raw materials for other sectors in the industrial landscape with little or no further processing. There is great potential to add more value by "upcycling" waste by further processes to develop new materials and alternative by-products from innovative processing technologies with less environmental impact. This requires novel industrial symbioses and relationships, sustainable and circular business models and governance arrangements. 3 Working with communities - co-development of new business and social enterprises. Large volumes of warm air and water are produced across the sectors, providing opportunities for low grade energy capture. Collaboratively with communities around FIs, we will identify the potential for co-located initiatives (district heating, market gardening etc.). This research will highlight issues of equality, diversity and inclusiveness, investigating the potential from societal, environmental, technical, business and governance perspectives. Added value to the project comes from the £3.5 M in-kind support of materials and equipment and use of manufacturing sites for real-life testing as well as a number of linked and aligned PhDs/EngDs from HEIs and partners This in-kind support will offer even greater return on investment and strongly embed the findings and operationalise them within the sector.

The decarbonisation of industrial clusters is of critical importance to the UK's ambitions of cutting greenhouse gas emissions to net zero by 2050. The UK Industrial Decarbonisation Challenge (IDC) of the Industrial Strategy Challenge Fund (ISCF) aims to establish the world's first net-zero carbon industrial cluster by 2040 and at least one low-carbon cluster by 2030. The Industrial Decarbonisation Research and Innovation Centre (IDRIC) has been formed to support this Challenge through funding a multidisciplinary research and innovation centre, which currently does not exist at the scale, to accelerate decarbonisation of industrial clusters. IDRIC works with academia, industry, government and other stakeholders to deliver the multidisciplinary research and innovation agenda needed to decarbonise the UK's industrial clusters. IDRIC's research and innovation programme is delivered through a range of activities that enable industry-led, multidisciplinary research in cross-cutting areas of technology, policy, economics and regulation. IDRIC connects and empowers the UK industrial decarbonisation community to deliver an impactful innovation hub for industrial decarbonisation. The establishment of IDRIC as the "one stop shop" for research and innovation, as well as knowledge exchange, regulation, policy and key skills will be beneficial across the industry sectors and clusters. In summary, IDRIC will connect stakeholders, inspire and deliver innovation and maximise impact to help the UK industrial clusters to grow our existing energy intensive industrial sectors, and to attract new, advanced manufacturing industries of the future.