In July 2023, the University of Sheffield’s Advanced Manufacturing Research Centre announced its largest-ever collaborative research and development programme – and one of the biggest research projects in the North of England – Composites at Speed and Scale (COMPASS)

COMPASS is an £80 million boost to composites R&D for aerospace manufacturing in the UK, which will play a critical role in helping the aviation industry meet future demand for lighter commercial aircraft and reach net zero.

The project is being delivered with a number of partners including Boeing, who have been working with the Advanced Manufacturing Research Centre (AMRC) for more than 20 years, together with Spirit AeroSystems and Loop Technology, and is supported by the South Yorkshire Mayoral Combined Authority, Sheffield City Council, the Aerospace Technology Institute and the High Value Manufacturing Catapult.

COMPASS is housed in a new research facility alongside the AMRC’s pioneering Factory 2050. It aims to develop new ways to manufacture large lightweight components, with the potential to reduce process times from around 40 hours to just 4 hours. This will be delivered through novel composites manufacturing and automation technologies for two-fold impact: reduced weight of the aircraft will make the aviation industry more sustainable through reduced fuel consumption in flights, while faster production processes will make them more efficient and less energy intensive.

The technology will ultimately support innovation in many critical UK sectors, such as aerospace, automotive, defence and offshore wind. For example, in the aerospace sector, it will enable lighter, more fuel efficient aircraft. This supports FlyZero – the UK government-backed programme exploring the future of zero-carbon emission air travel – to address how we can decarbonise aerospace, one of the sectors where this is particularly hard to achieve.

However, it is not just the size and scale of this ambitious project, and its potential to reduce carbon emissions, that is important. It is the role that it will play in stimulating growth and job creation in South Yorkshire by acting as an anchor project for the South Yorkshire Investment Zone – the first investment zone to be announced in the UK.

COMPASS was instrumental in the then-Chancellor of the Exchequer Jeremy Hunt visiting Factory 2050 to announce the UK’s first investment zone in South Yorkshire, with advanced manufacturing as its anchor theme.

Investment zones are focussed around innovation clusters in order to catalyse new business opportunities and jobs. The Mayor of South Yorkshire Oliver Coppard, who played a significant role in bringing the investment zone to the region, has publicly stated that the aspiration is to use the investment zone funding to leverage £1.2 billion of investment into South Yorkshire and create thousands of  jobs.

COMPASS is already bringing investment to South Yorkshire and, based on forecasted aircraft demand, has the potential to create up to 3,000 UK jobs by the mid-2030s, along with around £2 billion annually in export opportunities. It is one of the most significant regeneration projects in the UK for decades.

For the region, this project will strengthen the growing green aerospace cluster that is developing across South Yorkshire. This includes the Boeing and Rolls-Royce manufacturing sites that sit alongside the Advanced Manufacturing Park, and the many critical supply chain companies across Sheffield and Rotherham. The recent announcement that Hybrid Air Vehicles will create a manufacturing facility in Doncaster shows that the cluster is already expanding.

Over the last 20 years, the AMRC has delivered economic transformation to the South Yorkshire region. Projects like COMPASS represent a step change in this transformation and show what can be achieved through partnerships between central and local government, research institutions and the private sector.

Links

• COMPASS
• Advanced Manufacturing Research Centre
• South Yorkshire Investment Zone