The development of sensing surfaces that can be configured to target specific molecules, chemical agents, or biological markers is an important contributor to the building of sensing capabilities for public and force health protection, or human performance monitoring. The Ministry of Defence continuously evaluates new materials and technologies internally, with academia and industry partners. This includes the pursuit of sensing options relevant to the mentioned targets, with progress seen in examples such as electrochemical based sensing utilising a variety of candidate substrates. However, there are not currently any Science & Technology programmes within the department to develop sensing surfaces that utilise graphene specifically.

Advanced Materials is a frontier sector in the UK’s Modern Industrial Strategy.

As announced in the Industrial Strategy, Government is funding the National Materials Innovation Programme, with the aim to drive translation and adoption of materials across key industrial sectors, building on previous support for R&D through the Graphene Engineering Innovation Centre (GEIC) and the Henry Royce Institute.

The UK Intellectual Property Office supports innovators through a world-leading intellectual property framework that helps businesses protect and commercialise their IP.

The UK is making substantial investments in sovereign quantum capabilities through the National Quantum Strategy, the National Quantum Technologies Programme (NQTP), the National Quantum Computing Centre (NQCC), and associated industry-academia partnerships. As a founding partner of the NQTP, Dstl has played a pivotal role in shaping the programme's direction and priorities, contributing to its governance and ongoing evolution.

Dstl maintains a technology watch across the wider quantum ecosystem, however graphene photonics is not currently an area of direct Defence investment.

The National Quantum Strategy commits £2.5 billion over ten years to support the UK's quantum sector, while the NQCC is working to establish sovereign UK capability in quantum computing through investment in facilities, skills, technology platforms and supply chains.

The National Wealth Fund invests in capital intensive projects, businesses, and assets by offering financing in the form of debt, equity and guarantees.

The Government published the National Wealth Fund’s Statement of Strategic Priorities on 19 March which directed the National Wealth Fund to consider investments in dual-use technologies across its priority sectors of clean energy, digital and technologies, advanced manufacturing, and transport to better support the UK’s defence and security.

The National Wealth Fund is operationally independent and has delegated authority to make investment decisions, subject to those investments meeting certain conditions agreed with HM Treasury. An investment made by the National Wealth Fund would need to have satisfied its investment principles and internal approval processes.

Every business that produces or deals with waste has a legal duty of care to make sure that their waste is classified correctly so it can be dealt with responsibly and safely.

They must take all reasonable steps to ensure it is managed appropriately by an authorised person, whether being recovered or disposed of. If the waste is hazardous, then additional controls will apply.

Those who fail in this duty may be subject to prosecution or a fixed penalty notice.

The Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency (MHRA) have not received any reported adverse events relating to medical and surgical face masks containing graphene. The MHRA continues to review all available information and will issue safety information as and when necessary.

At this point in the lifecycle of such an emergent technology, we cannot make reliable estimates of graphene’s near-term contribution to UK GDP. There is a long lead-in time for new materials to be embedded in technologies, and the case of graphene is no exception. Graphene is increasingly gaining traction across the world. One report has estimated that the global graphene-based products market will grow to $2.1 billion by 2025, with a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 46.3%.[1] Over 140 companies in the UK have been active in graphene in the UK. The Government is playing an active role to support the development and exploitation of graphene – including through the projects funded by Innovate UK and the Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council (EPSRC), with universities, and suppliers and end users of graphene, and the foundation of the National Graphene Institute (NGI) and the Graphene Engineering Innovation Centre (GEIC).

[1] Graphene: Technologies, Applications and Markets, BCC Research, 2016

The UK Government currently invests well over £100 million in graphene research, training and innovation. This includes £50m Government capital investment to build national capability to support the commercialisation of applications for graphene (pledged by the Chancellor of the Exchequer, George Osborne, in October 2011), £34m for graphene innovation capability and over £24m in EPSRC research and training grants across UK universities.

The National Graphene Institute (NGI) at the University of Manchester is a key element of the UK’s global research and technology graphene hub to build national capability to support the commercialisation of applications for graphene. The NGI is a resource for research groups and businesses across the UK to facilitate collaborative work where appropriate. It has received funding of £38 million of the £50m capital funds from the UK Government via the Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council (EPSRC), alongside £23 million of funds from the European Regional Development Fund to help accelerate the commercialisation of graphene. The NGI was officially opened by the Chancellor, the Rt Hon George Osborne, on 20 March 2015.

More than 35 companies from across the world have already chosen to partner with The University of Manchester working on graphene-related projects. University of Manchester researchers have also secured £9.5 million from EPSRC for ‘Graphene Engineering’ research projects and a Centre for Doctoral Training focussed on developing world-leading expertise in the science and technology of graphene.

In 2014, Innovate UK and EPSRC invested £2.5m in feasibility studies to accelerate commercial applications of graphene. The competition invested in projects that explored the potential of graphene to yield new products that could disrupt markets.

To build UK capacity in this area, £34m has been invested into graphene innovation capability. In 2014, £20m funding was announced (including £15m from HEFCE UK Research Partnership Investment Fund and £5m from Innovate UK) towards a £60m investment in Manchester called the Graphene Engineering Innovation Centre (GEIC), which is co-funded by the Abu Dhabi-based renewable energy company Masdar. UK Trade and Investment worked alongside Manchester City Council and the University of Manchester to secure this investment. Set to open in Manchester in 2017, the GEIC will complement the NGI and initiate further industry-led development in graphene applications with academic collaboration. The GEIC will contain substantial pilot production facilities and will be a leading test-bed for graphene process engineering and scale-up. It will link with international programmes for research project support, such as the €1 billion European Union Graphene Flagship.

Also in 2014, the Chancellor announced a £14 million investment for a “Graphene Applications Innovation Centre” to be based at the Centre for Process Innovation in the north-east of England (part of the High Value Manufacturing Catapult).

Subject to the availability of funding following the Spending Review, Innovate UK intends to further support business-led innovation in graphene by running competitions to accelerate the commercial applications of graphene. An efficient, longer-lasting ‘graphene lightbulb’, developed by a University of Manchester spin-out company, is believed to be the first commercial application of graphene to emerge from the UK.

In 2014, Innovate UK set up a Graphene Special Interest Group (SIG) to provide leadership and a focal point for the exploitation of graphene by UK industry and to help connect and align the developing UK graphene value chain. A scoping document produced for the Graphene SIG examined time to market for key graphene-enabled technologies, it can be found at:

https://connect.innovateuk.org/documents/10660253/14368155/Graphene%20Think%20Piece_Oct2013

The table below shows the number of published patent applications in the UK (filed by applicants based anywhere in the world) and the total number worldwide.

The Intellectual Property Office (IPO) does not hold worldwide patent data so this has been extracted from an external database, as used in the IPO’s 2015 graphene patent landscape report available from

https://www.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/419651/Graphene_-_the_worldwide_patent_landscape_in_2015_-_accessible.pdf