News

A widely-used gas that is currently produced from fossil fuels can instead be made by an ‘artificial leaf’ that uses only sunlight, carbon dioxide and water, and which could eventually be used to develop a sustainable liquid fuel alternative to petrol.The carbon-neutral device sets a new benchmark in the field of solar fuels, after researchers at t…

The University of Cambridge is building on its existing research and launching an ambitious new climate change initiative.Cambridge Zero will harness the full breadth of the University’s research capabilities – from the sciences, engineering, humanities and social sciences – and policy expertise, to respond to climate change and support the transit…

“There’s almost no problem in the real world you can solve with a single approach”, stressed Simon Sharpe, Head of International Climate Strategy at BEIS. Mr. Sharpe was speaking to a lively crowd who had gathered in the reading rooms of the British Academy to participate in a knowledge exchange between policymakers and the contributing authors of …

Eight Cambridge researchers are among the latest recipients of European Union awards given to early-career researchers from over 50 countries.The European Research Council (ERC) Starting Grants have been awarded to 408 researchers from across Europe. The awards will help individual researchers to build their own teams and conduct world-leading rese…

Three Royal Medals are awarded annually by the Sovereign on the recommendation of the Council of the Royal Society. Prof Dame Ann Dowling joins other leading Fellows, including Sir Tim Berners-Lee, inventor of the World Wide Web, and geneticist and cell biologist Sir Paul Nurse, who have previously received the award.Dame Ann is Professor of Mechan…

Judith will become a Royal Academy of Engineering Chair.From 1 October 2019, Judith is pleased to announce that she will become a Royal Academy of Engineering Chair in Emerging Technologies in Advanced Memory Materials.

The Department of Engineering, University of Cambridge launched its new prize, the Helios Prize, for graduate research in sustainable energy or energy efficiency. The prize has been made possible thanks to a generous donation from Cambridge alumnus John Firth.The Prize is named after Helios, in relation to global renewable energy fundamentally driv…

Dr Alex Forse has been appointed to a lectureship in Materials Chemistry in the Department of Chemistry. Alex's group aims to understand and improve materials that can reduce greenhouse gas emissions and tackle the global warming crisis. Limiting global warming to 1.5 ºC requires the rapid development and deployment of a range of greenhouse gas mit…

The Henry Royce Institute and University of Cambridge is pleased to announce that Professor Manish Chhowalla has been appointed as the Academic Champion for the Royce facilities installed at the University (Cambridge Royce). Manish succeeds Professor Sir Richard Friend as Cambridge Royce Champion  from 1st July 2019. Manish is the Goldsmiths’ Profe…

Wearable electronic components incorporated directly into fabrics have been developed by researchers at the University of Cambridge. The devices could be used for flexible circuits, healthcare monitoring, energy conversion, and other applications.The Cambridge researchers, working in collaboration with colleagues at Jiangnan University in China, ha…

Collaboration between government and startups could help meet the climate challenge while growing small businesses. Findings could inform discussions on Green New Deal or any “forward-looking policy package” say researchers.Latest research on hundreds of new green technology companies in the US shows the patenting activity of a startup climbs by ov…

A recent University of Cambridge spin-out company, Paragraf, has started producing graphene – a sheet of carbon just one atomic layer thick – at up to eight inches (20cm) in diameter, large enough for commercial electronic devices. Paragraf is producing graphene ‘wafers’ and graphene-based electronic devices, which could be used in transistors, whe…

On 14th February 2019 Energy@Cambridge hosted the first Forum meeting of the new Cambridge Centre for Circular Economy Approaches to Eliminate Plastic Waste at the Maxwell Centre, Cambridge. The Centre is one of eight new research projects funded through the Plastics and Research Innovation Fund managed by UK Research and Innovation (UKRI). The Cam…

Cambridge researchers are working to solve one of technology’s biggest puzzles: how to build next-generation batteries that could power a green revolution. The key to making electronics portable – and powering a sea change in how we communicate and consume information – was the commercialisation of lithium-ion batteries by Sony in 1991. Lithium-ion…

Cambridge's Centre for Circular Economy Approaches to Eliminate Plastic Waste is one of eight new research projects exploring ways of making, using and recycling plastics which have been announced by the Science Minister, Chris Skidmore on 18 December 2018. The projects are part of the government's Industrial Strategy and will commence from January…