METEOR is the Manufacturing, Engineering, Technology and Earth Observation Research Centre which offers a space research and innovation facility, tech cluster and enterprise zone to co-locate academic and industrial space R&D. It adopts an end-to-end approach to the primary research challenges enabling Space 4.0. The centre co-locates over 100 researchers and industrial R&D personnel and consists of a combination of laboratories, clean rooms, workshops, offices, a concurrent design studio, virtual reality cave, teaching space and business co-location space.
Research England, through its capital infrastructure mechanism, UK Research Partnership Investment Fund (UKRPIF), provided funding of £13.75M towards an additional 5,000m2 of research and innovation facilities at Space Park Leicester. Drawing on the region’s centres of excellence to exploit space-enabled data, develop skills for the space industry and provide low-cost access to space and satellites, this funding became a component in developing critical mass or world-leading laboratory and workshop spaces at Space Park Leicester.
In addition to investment from the University and partners, the METEOR funding application committed to securing an additional £27.5M of co-investment from a partnership of businesses. The form of this co-investment is a mix of in-kind and capital, and includes items such as staff time, research funding, access to facilities, data, software licenses and credits for cloud computing.
To find out more about METEOR, please contact the METEOR Programme Manager, Dr Stephen Wright.