13 Green Future Fellows have each been awarded £3 million to scale innovative ideas and engineering
The Royal Academy of Engineering has awarded a share of £39 million to advanced engineering solutions, including new technologies to store renewable energy, power data centres and computers more efficiently, and multiply the power of batteries fourfold
13 Green Future Fellows have each been awarded £3 million to scale innovative ideas and engineering over the next decade into commercially viable technologies capable of having a lasting impact on the climate crisis. The Department for Science, Innovation and Technology funds the Green Future Fellowship programme.
Among the first awardees were innovators developing technologies capable of turning waste CO2 into products such as plastic, fuels, and chemicals; engineers creating more efficient recyclable solar panels; and a project to extract critical metals for batteries, magnets, solar panels, and fuel cells from filtering salty water. Others included:
- The way we store renewable energy for long-term future use is the focus of Professor Laura Torrente’s work at the University of Cambridge. Torrente uses renewable electricity, water, and nitrogen from the air to produce ammonia cleanly and safely. In this way, clean energy is stored in the chemical bonds of the carbon-free ammonia, which can be used as a fuel and as a backup for renewable power generation (producing only water and nitrogen when burnt). Her work also focuses on safe ammonia storage so it can be easily transported to parts of the country where more energy capacity is required.
- Data centres use 1.5% of all electricity produced, with up to 40% of that electricity used on air cooling. Dr Rostislav Mikhaylovskiy from Lancaster University is developing a new type of memory that uses short bursts of terahertz radiation – light pulses a thousand times faster than today’s technology. They flip the direction of small magnets that store bits of data. Because these pulses match the magnet's energy, they can switch them without creating heat. This could lead to much faster, cooler and more energy-efficient data storage in the future.
- Professor Robert House at the University of Oxford is developing a new type of battery that’s four times more energy-dense than current lithium-ion batteries, making them lighter and more powerful, ideal for electric or hybrid planes. Using nanoengineering, they overcome the challenges of current Li-ion batteries, which carry excess weight in electrode materials, by storing energy in lighter structures. Increasing the energy density fourfold means batteries can be made much smaller and lighter, which could help to electrify aeroplanes.
Other innovations utilise sound waves to destroy forever chemicals in water and soil instead of pyrolytic incineration, use special microbes to convert carbon dioxide into clean hydrogen by using green electricity, and capture CO2 from manufacturing processes.
Baroness Brown of Cambridge, fellow of the Royal Academy of Engineering and chair of the Green Future Fellowship Steering Group, said, “The climate crisis is the challenge of our generation. We need era-defining solutions that address the enormity of the challenge. Many of these solutions exist, but need the dual investment of money and time to make them a success. The Green Future Fellowships support innovators who are pushing engineering boundaries, building bold solutions to climate change mitigation, adaptation and resilience. The inaugural Green Future Fellows are pioneering truly advanced technologies and engineering solutions to protect the world we live in.”
Several solutions intended to stop the rise in global average temperatures and adapt to the impacts of climate change require time and funding to be developed, scaled, and made commercially viable.
The Green Future Fellowship was established to develop solutions to climate adaptation, mitigation, and resilience, and has received support through a £150m investment from the Department for Science, Innovation and Technology.
Dr Hayaatun Sillem, CEO of the Royal Academy of Engineering, said, “Engineering is playing a critical role in addressing the climate crisis. We are awarding £150 million over the next five years to at least 50 long-term, scalable, commercially viable solutions that will have real-world impact, with each awardee able to develop their solution over a 10-year period. This novel and ambitious approach to supporting climate solutions fills a gap in the funding landscape by providing flexible support to talented innovators from any background to convert transformational ideas into climate impact. The Royal Academy of Engineering’s Green Future Fellowships provide academics, entrepreneurs, innovators and engineers the space and time to transform their cutting-edge ideas into scalable, commercially viable technologies to secure a greener, fairer future.”
Lord Vallance, UK Science Minister, said, “We can’t solve the climate crisis without engineering solutions. By supporting new approaches to key problems – storing renewable energy, extracting greenhouse gases from the atmosphere, and the huge carbon footprint of some industrial processes – these fellowships are empowering researchers to tackle global warming. Investing in this work reflects the Government's wider commitment to make the UK the natural home for the best science that we all benefit from, and our ambition to make the UK a clean energy superpower.”
At least 50 Green Future Fellows are to be appointed within five years. Successful applicants become Green Future Fellows for the 10-year award period, receiving up to £3m and support, including mentorship, training, access to the Academy’s network of investors, and additional tailored support.
Applicants can be from any country; however, due to the initiative being UK-funded, they must locate their work in the UK. The solutions created by the Green Future Fellows must have an impact that benefits the UK and the global community.
The application period for the second round of funding ended in November, and the awardees will be announced in 2027. A third round of applications will open in 2026. For exceptional non-UK-based applicants, an Accelerated International Route is open.
