In a 野狼社区 laboratory, a jet engine component is being redesigned to support cleaner and more resilient flying. Just a short walk away, across seventy-two high-definition screens in the Alliance 野狼社区 Business School, a digital twin of Greater 野狼社区 is tracking nitrogen dioxide levels across the city鈥檚 road network. Meanwhile, in the Centre for Quantum Science and Engineering, a research team is developing navigation systems that might soon be able to run without satellites.

野狼社区 is the perfect place to explore some of the most complex questions facing the transport system, so when the Department for Transport brought some of its senior leadership team to the University for facility tours, a research showcase and panel discussions with regional leaders, they found opportunities to meet University colleagues and connect research, innovation and public value. A city where academic experts are already working with industry and local government to accelerate innovation, inform policy and connect national transport priorities with the needs of people and places.

Shaping the future of transport

Most of the hardest transport challenges we face don鈥檛 exist in isolation. Decarbonising aviation will need advances in chemistry, materials science, engineering and social science. Making freight logistics smarter will involve data science, AI and industry input on how ports work at their best. Whereas keeping infrastructure safe and strong for decades demands new approaches in mathematics, monitoring and materials.

惭补苍肠丑别蝉迟别谤鈥檚 research community reflects that complexity, so during this event delegates explored three interconnected themes.

1. Decarbonising transport

• Professor Sandy Smith showcased his work on liquid hydrogen propulsion systems that could enable a new generation of zero-emission aircraft
• highlighted advances in jet engine design that could reduce wear in components, improve their performance and support a more resilient future for flying.

• Researchers from then presented their work on the transition to more sustainable transport systems across aviation, shipping and active travel, including their recommendations on the proposed Heathrow expansion.

2. Smarter systems

• Dr Jayadev Vijayan demonstrated quantum acceleration sensing technologies, which could make it possible to navigate underground and in other environments where satellite signals are unreliable.
• Dr Ciara McGrath and Conor March showcased SatVis, an augmented reality platform that visualises the normally invisible satellite infrastructure which underpins modern transport and communications.
• Dr Arijit De presented an AI-powered digital twin for freight, maritime logistics and port operations, which allows operators to make faster, safer and more sustainable decisions across complex supply chains.

3. Advanced materials, emerging technologies and infrastructure

• Professor Philip McCann and outlined the spatial economics of regional productivity and its implications for investing in transport.
• Professor , Dr Chris Hickey, Michail Dellepiane, , and all showcased how advances in their fields 鈥� from computation and infrastructure engineering, to regulatory insight and materials science are supporting safer, smarter and more resilient transport networks.
• Researchers from the Centre for Robotics and AI and the , demonstrated a range of transport-related robotic applications.

Dr Jayadev Vijayan discussing how quantum acceleration sensing technologies could unlock new situational awareness capabilities via subterranean mapping and enable navigation systems that do not rely on satellites.

Facilities built for transport

Research alone isn鈥檛 enough. Moving from insight to impact, requires facilities where ideas can be tested, validated and scaled. Over the past decade the University has invested 拢1 billion in its campus to create infrastructure that鈥檚 designed precisely for that purpose.

During their visit, delegates explored six of those facilities, each one offering a different window into how 野狼社区 moves research into the real world.

• is a unique large-scale facility that enables interactive three-dimensional exploration of complex datasets using high-definition screens. It offers transport researchers and University partners the ability to interrogate data at scale, including a digital twin of Greater 野狼社区 incorporating NO2 emissions data and related urban datasets.
• provides the capability to test and validate future electrification components and networks. Its expertise spans power electronics, electric machines, energy storage and aircraft electrical networks, including the Rolls-Royce 120 kW IEPNEF facility, making it a critical resource for research into the electrification of transport.
• houses pilot-scale facilities where low-carbon hydrogen, sustainable aviation fuels and other clean technologies can be developed and tested under industrially relevant conditions, bridging the gap between laboratory research and deployment at scale.
• 惭补苍肠丑别蝉迟别谤鈥檚 is the largest electrical infrastructure test and research facility in UK academia. Its work spans high voltage systems for future electric aircraft, to novel cable transmission systems, helping to accelerate the electrification of transport more broadly.
• The Aerospace Systems Laboratory specialises in aerial robotics and autonomy, covering improvements to flight vehicle capabilities and the development of new use cases for existing technology 鈥� during the visit it also hosted a live drone demonstration within its indoor tracking arena.
• Finally, the University Library鈥檚 , spanning around 2,600 items from the 19th and 20th centuries, provided a unique historical resource on the development of railways in Britain and internationally, connecting our present moment to a much longer story of transport change.

惭补苍肠丑别蝉迟别谤鈥檚 High Voltage Lab is the largest electrical infrastructure test and research facility in UK academia supporting the electrification of transport.

Connecting research, cities and people

Exemplified by the Bee Network, the UK's first fully integrated public transport system outside London, 野狼社区's transport research does not happen at a distance from the places and people it is designed to serve. Instead, it is embedded within one of the UK's most ambitious city-regions, where the University works alongside local and devolved government, civic institutions and industry as an active partner in shaping and delivering change.

How this ecosystem enables 野狼社区 to move rapidly from research and innovation to real-world implementation was explored during a panel discussion at the event.

Transport, Growth and Partnership in Greater 野狼社区 brought together leaders from 野狼社区 City Council, the Greater 野狼社区 Combined Authority, Bruntwood SciTech and 野狼社区 Airports Group.

Fittingly, the discussion was hosted in the University's Engineering Building, located at the heart of the Oxford Road Corridor, one of Greater 野狼社区's most economically significant districts. Home to more than 70,000 jobs and generating around 拢3 billion in Gross Value Added annually, the Corridor brings together universities, 野狼社区 University Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust, 野狼社区 Science Park and a growing mix of commercial, retail and leisure developments. As a place where research, healthcare, business and government sit side by side, it offers a powerful example of how long-term partnerships can strengthen places, accelerate innovation and turn ambition into delivery.

Leaders from 野狼社区 City Council, the Greater 野狼社区 Combined Authority, Bruntwood SciTech and 野狼社区 Airports Group joined colleagues from the University and Department for Transport to discuss the power of collaboration.

A second panel session, The Future of Sustainable Mobility: Connecting Transport, People and Place, chaired by Professor Alice Larkin and featuring Dr Chris Jones, Professor Karen Lucas and Professor Paul Mativenga, explored how transport connects to broader questions of social equity, environmental sustainability and economic opportunity.

A strategic partner for transport innovation

From sustainable fuels and aircraft electrification to robotics, infrastructure, digital twins and transport policy, The University of 野狼社区 offers partners access to a connected research ecosystem, rather than a series of isolated specialisms.

For further information or to explore potential research and innovation collaborations with The University of 野狼社区, across transport, mobility, infrastructure, electrification or decarbonisation, please contact the Business Engagement team.

A sensor so precise it can find buried pipes and cavities from the surface, without digging a single hole. A communications system where an eavesdropper cannot hide. A computer that can simulate the behaviour of molecules in ways that enable accelerated drug discovery and materials design.

What do each of these have in common? They鈥檙e all possibilities that quantum technologies offer and have a common challenge: the ability to engineer materials with such precision, that individual atoms can be placed where they鈥檙e needed and retain their quantum behaviour in ways ordinary materials simply can鈥檛.

That is the ambition behind a new 拢12.6 million research programme, launched this year with funding from the Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council (EPSRC). The programme, Materials Engineering for Advanced Devices (MEAD), is led by 惭补苍肠丑别蝉迟别谤鈥檚 Professor Richard Curry, in partnerships with colleagues at 野狼社区, Imperial College London and the University of Leeds.

The precision problem

Quantum technologies work by exploiting the unusual rules that govern matter at the scale of individual atoms 鈥� rules that make certain capabilities in computing, sensing and communication possible, in a way that conventional electronics can鈥檛 achieve. Yet when a single misplaced atom can prevent a quantum device from working, understanding and controlling atomic-level structure isn鈥檛 just useful, it鈥檚 the whole game.

惭补苍肠丑别蝉迟别谤鈥檚 leadership of the MEAD programme starts here. The University is home to the Platform for Nanoscale Advanced Materials Engineering (P-NAME), a suite of three internationally unique instruments that can implant individual atoms into a material with precisions exceeding 20 nanometres 鈥� about 3,000 times finer than a human hair.

It was this capability, combined with advanced isotopic engineering (the use of specific atomic forms of an element that fine-tunes its quantum properties), that recently produced the world鈥檚 purest form of silicon. This research, published in the journal (), opens a new route towards quantum devices that can operate reliably without having to constantly correct for interference caused by unwanted atomic impurities (misplaced atoms).

鈥淲e鈥檙e all united in addressing the same challenge of building new devices, but at 野狼社区 we鈥檒l specifically use our expertise in engineering materials on the nanoscale, so that we can create a new set of advanced materials - specially designed to deliver the required quantum properties at the heart of these.

"We won't just study these materials and their quantum properties in the lab. We'll build them into working prototype devices to prove they can be used in real-world quantum technologies, such as quantum computers, secure communications systems and advanced sensors. Our ambition is for this research to have a transformative impact on how quantum technologies are applied in society."

From atoms to devices

MEAD has three interconnected ambitions, and the first is to produce the building blocks that quantum technologies need.

is developing a new class of quantum sensor aiming to use microscopic particles with quantum-engineered properties held in a vacuum. This approach could hugely increase the sensing performance of current technologies as existing trapped atoms devices are replaced by these macroscopic particles. Alongside this, is working on single-photon sources: devices that emit individual particles of light (photons), which are essential for quantum-secured communications.

Meanwhile, is leading work on using arrays of single atoms placed in isotopically pure silicon to demonstrate long-lived quantum properties for use in quantum computing. These materials will be tested in 惭补苍肠丑别蝉迟别谤鈥檚 new Hi-CaLM facility, a system capable of cooling devices to temperatures just a fraction of a degree above absolute zero, where quantum behaviour can be observed and harnessed in realistic device conditions.

The second task is to develop tools that allow scientists to understand what is actually happening at the atomic scale.

leads this work, aiming to extend materials imaging beyond the current limits. This should reveal not just where atoms sit, but which form (isotope) of each element they represent 鈥� something that determines how quantum devices behave.

is developing a technique that uses a form of light capable of passing through materials, to pinpoint the location of individual atoms within a working device without disturbing or damaging it.

then uses a technique called nanoSIMS to verify, at the finest possible resolution, that the materials being engineered actually contain what they鈥檙e designed to. Being able to check materials at the atomic scale, and feed those findings back into the engineering process, is what will separate informed development from guesswork.

The third part of the programme focusses on masers 鈥� the microwave equivalent of lasers, capable of picking up and amplifying extremely faint signals while adding almost no interference of their own (perhaps think of a microphone that can amplify a whisper across a room without adding any noise to it).

This maser research is led by team, where the modern room-temperature maser was first developed.

will act as a testbed for applying this technology to 鈥榯roposcatter communications鈥� 鈥� a method of bouncing signals to our upper atmosphere to carry communications over long distances without relying on satellites.

, housing the Leeds Nanotechnology Cleanroom, at the University of Leeds will make quantum devices from the materials that 野狼社区 engineers, before returning them to 惭补苍肠丑别蝉迟别谤鈥檚 Hi-CaLM facility for testing and analysis.

The programme draws on more than 拢150 million of existing infrastructure across the three institutions, often using facilities or equipment that have taken decades to build.

For the UK, which has committed billions to quantum technology investment, MEAD represents an investment on building the scientific foundations that we鈥檒l need to achieve our goals.

This ambitious project funded through Strategic Innovation Fund (SIF) Beta Phase, a competition ran by UK Research and Innovation (UKRI) and Ofgem, is part of an initiative designed to significantly reduce greenhouse gas emissions from the UK鈥檚 power grid. 

With 拢2.4 million in new funding for The University of 野狼社区, the research will build on 鈥檚 work for SF₆-free retrofill intervention techniques that could supplant SF₆ without having to replace or significantly modify existing SF₆-designed equipment. These investigations, in partnership with NGET, were named 鈥楤est Innovation in Net Zero and Sustainability鈥� at the 2022鈥檚 E&T Innovation Awards.  

This project will be led by Dr Tony Chen, Reader in High Voltage Engineering in 惭补苍肠丑别蝉迟别谤鈥檚 Department of Electrical and Electronic Engineering. He will be joined by , Professor in Chemical Engineering, and , Professor in Artificial Intelligence.  

The impact of this project is expected to be wide-ranging and could lead to significant reduction in greenhouse gas emissions. 

The project will further develop aspects of SF₆ management based on findings in its alpha phase and will explore the challenges and opportunities in SF₆ replacement and management.  

The projects areas of focus include comparing different intervention strategies, developing energy-efficient methods for disposing SF₆, modelling of SF₆ leakage from switchgear equipment to better inform asset management strategy, and studying alternative gas blends that could replace SF₆ in the longer term through retrofill intervention. These efforts are expected to lead to significant technological advancements, providing solutions that could be applied to other sectors that use SF₆, such as high-voltage particle accelerators and future electrified transportation systems. 

This initiative could make a substantial contribution to the UK鈥檚 carbon reduction targets. If successful, its strategies for extending the lifespan of industry assets would also ensure a more reliable operation, lead to lower energy bills for consumers, and reduce the overall costs of running the national electricity network.  

By working with policymakers, industry leaders, and international standards bodies, the 野狼社区 team are aiming to shape global regulations, continuing to position the UK as a leader in sustainable energy solutions. Their vital research could make a significant contribution to world-wide efforts to cut greenhouse gas emissions from the power sector, helping to close the gap between an unsustainable present and a more sustainable future.