Tata Steel has signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) with Imperial College London to set up a Centre for Innovation in Sustainable Design and Manufacturing in London.

This Centre will enable the acceleration of technology development and deployment in strategic areas, attract talent, and strengthen the industry-academia collaborative eco-system.

To pursue this goal, Tata Steel will invest £10 million over four years in this Centre.

The Centre will initially focus on four primary themes: manufacturing for the future economy, smart manufacturing, sustainable multi-material joining technologies, and net-zero construction technologies. The Centre will work on sustainable material manufacturing, encompassing the design and development of downstream processes with low-CO2, low-energy, and low-cost footprints. 

"Our goal is to synergise research excellence with industry experience to create cutting-edge technology solutions for a greener future" TV Narendran

The aim is to collectively leverage Imperial’s engineering and design partner ecosystem for multi-material solutions with sustainability attained through the design of processes for making components.

T. V. Narendran, CEO & MD, Tata Steel, said: “The Centre for Innovation is a part of Tata Steel’s larger endeavour to build stronger industry-academia partnerships for driving technological advancement and creating strategic advantages. The Centre at Imperial provides a strong academic and research platform with an excellent talent pool. Our goal is to synergise research excellence with industry experience to create cutting-edge technology solutions for a greener future. This initiative reaffirms Tata Steel's unwavering commitment to creating a knowledge-intensive organisation.”

Dr Debashish Bhattacharjee, Vice President, Technology and R&D, Tata Steel, said: “The Centre at Imperial will focus on design and development of sustainable solutions. Sustainability cannot be an after-thought, rather needs to be embedded into the production process and materials design. Tata Steel is committed to pioneering disruptive technologies through active collaboration and I look forward to engaging with an acclaimed academic institution like Imperial on the journey towards technology leadership and sustainable business growth.”

"Sustainability cannot be an after-thought, rather needs to be embedded into the production process and materials design" Debashish Bhattacharjee

Professor Mary Ryan, Vice-Provost (Research and Enterprise) at Imperial College London and co-chair of the Governing Council of the Centre, said: “Drawing on Imperial and Tata Steel’s combined expertise, this new Centre will work to reduce the environmental impact in steel production and in key sectors that use steel, like the clean energy sector. To create a zero-pollution future, it’s vital that we prioritise systematic transformation of industrial systems. By doing this, the new Centre will contribute to the creation of a high tech and economically successful steel industry, both in the UK and across the world.”