A £15.2bn industry employing over 89,400 people in the UK with nationally leading productivity and global industrial and societal impact
A fully searchable directory of all companies, research organisations and universities engaged in Photonics and Quantum in the UK
Photonics21 has launched the Photonics21 Innovation Award 2024. This dedicated Innovation Challenge seeks to push for more entrepreneurship in photonics. The Photonics21 Innovation Award addresses PhD students, master students, young entrepreneurs, and makers alike who have an idea for a photonics product that can transform into a real business or product. This idea can be…
The 2023 update of the UK Photonics Landscape is now available on the PLG’s YouTube channel. As presented to the Princess Royal during her visit to SPIE’s Photonex in October 2023. Further details are available in PLG’s UK Photonics 2023: the Hidden Economy report.
UK photonics has grown into a £15.2 billion industry, with like-for-like revenue growth from 2020 to 2022 of over 7%. Profit growth has been even higher at 9% over two years, whilst employment in the industry has grown at 3.2% in the same period. 79,100 people are now employed in photonics in the UK. Strong…
The Department for Science, Innovation & Technology (DSIT) has commissioned a feasibility study to understand the technical and economic feasibility of developing specific capabilities to support commercial R&D, grow the UK semiconductor sector and contribute to supply chain resilience. The study is led by IfM Engage and supported by strong industrial and academic consortium partners…
As part of the government’s National Semiconductor Strategy, the Department for Science, Innovation and Technology (DSIT) has commissioned a study led by IFM to understand the technical and economic feasibility of developing specific semiconductor infrastructure to support commercial R&D, grow the UK semiconductor sector and contribute to supply chain resilience. The study will present proposals and inform…
The Photonics Leadership Group welcomes the publication of the Government’s National semiconductor strategy. UK strength in photonics and compound semiconductors and the importance of integrated photonics are all emphasised in the strategy. The strategy secures initial funding for the UK Semiconductor Infrastructure Initiative. Inputs are currently sort into a major user group survey to gather…
The key elements in the UK Spring Budget 2023 announced 15 March impacting photonics include:- The PLG welcomes the launch of the UK’s Quantum strategy and long term investment for this emerging technology area, so much of which is enabled through photonics.
Have your input into the definitive overview of state of photonics in the UK
Innovate UK will be investing up to £18million to support the development of skills in the semicon sector (£6.5m) and scale-up of semiconductor manufacturing (£6.5m) in the UK. There will be a further £11.5m competition later in 2023 to take forward ideas from the initial scale-up competition. The briefing event will be on line on…
The election for the first committee of the Future Photonics Leaders (working abbreviation PLNX) group took place on 19th December 2022; the PLG is pleased to announce the elected candidates for each role. To reflect the larger anticipated workload for the Funding Officer role, multiple Funding Officers were appointed. The PLNX and the PLG would…
