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Centred at the Research Complex at the Harwell campus in Oxfordshire, the Hub will co-ordinate a collaborative research program across the UK.

Three institutions, the University of Bath, Cardiff University, and The University of Manchester will lead three of the Hub's themes, with 25 universities directly involved in projects and over 45 involved in a wider network across the catalysis community.

The Hub is focused on building the UK economy through designing new catalysts and processes for clean water, sustainable energy and low carbon, resource efficient manufacturing of fuels, plastics and chemicals.

There will also be a core theme which will provide key management and governance for the scientific programmes operated by the Hub. The Core will coordinate all the Hub activities and interaction with the UK catalysis community via conferences, workshops, website and social media, and community development.

It will ensure technique development at the Harwell Hub through two science work packages:

• WP1: High throughput and improved sample environments for catalysis at central facilities - Emma Gibson (Glasgow)
• WP2: Data analysis, processing and curation - Barbara Montanari (STFC/ CoSeC)

Dr Barbara Montanari, Director of CoSeC, said, " This investment will be of great benefit to the research communities that we support. The work package on data analysis, processing and curation will enable further and easier exploitation of experimental data and assist in the characterisation or structure solution of catalytic compounds by integrating experimental and computational techniques."​

The three interrelated themes of the Hub are:

• Optimising, Predicting and Designing New Catalysts
  
• Catalysis at the Water-energy Nexus
• Catalysis for the Circular Economy and Sustainable Manufacturing
  

Professor Graham Hutchings, Director of the UK Catalysis Hub, said: Catalysis is vital for the UK economy, from new food production to pharmaceuticals. Catalysts speed up chemical reactions making them possible on useful timescales. Catalysis is involved in over 90 per cent of all (industrial) chemical reactions and 85 per cent of all products require a catalyst somewhere in their production. It has a huge impact, socially and economically.

The UK has some outstanding researchers in the field of Catalysis, and it is a vital field for UK industry with a major role to play in the creation of new or improved processes and solving global challenges. Catalysis will be critical in issues including sustainability, energy, green fuels, CO2 utilisation and water.

For more information see the EPSRC press release​