Report on the 1st Metamaterials Manufacturing Conference
23rd–24th March 2026
The 1st Metamaterials Manufacturing Conference, organised by the Manufacturing Challenge team within the UK Metamaterials Network, successfully took place over two lively and engaging days on 23rd–24th March 2026. The event brought together a diverse and highly engaged audience of academics, early?career researchers, and PhD students. The conference focused on advancing the manufacturing of metamaterials and metamaterial-enabled devices.
The conference addressed one of the most pressing issues facing the field today: how to transition metamaterials from elegant laboratory demonstrations to robust, reliable, and scalable real-world technologies. While the scientific principles underpinning metamaterial behaviour are now well established, the event highlighted that manufacturing, metrology, and quality assurance remain critical bottlenecks. Over the two days, participants explored how these challenges can be tackled through interdisciplinary collaboration, innovation in manufacturing routes, and closer engagement between academia and industry.
Day 1: Manufacturing challenges and emerging solutions
The first day opened with welcome coffee and registration, followed by an introductory talk that set out the motivation and vision for the conference. The initial morning session featured stimulating contributions from Bryn Davies (University of Warwick), Hodjat Hajian (University of Bristol), John Murphy (University of Birmingham), and Ifty Ahmed (University of Nottingham). These talks explored the interplay between design, defects, and manufacturability, highlighting the need to embed manufacturing considerations early in the metamaterials design process.
Following the conference photograph and lunch, the afternoon sessions continued the strong technical focus. Talks by Kai Sun (University of Southampton), Fabrizio Scarpa (University of Bristol), Jamie Williams (National Physical Laboratory), and Dwaipayan Chakrabarti (University of Birmingham) provided valuable perspectives on scalable fabrication approaches, performance characterisation, and the role of standards and metrology in enabling industrial uptake. The inclusion of expertise from the National Physical Laboratory sparked particularly productive discussions around traceability, testing protocols, and reproducibility.
A highlight of the day was the ‘Just a Minute’ poster introductions, which gave early?career researchers a platform to showcase their work. The subsequent poster session generated animated discussions. The day concluded with talks from Luke Tinsley (Manchester Metropolitan University), Samaneh Kalhor (University of Glasgow), and Nick Grant (University of Warwick), before delegates continued conversations over dinner.
Day 2: Community building and collaboration
Day 2 built on the momentum of the first day, with a strong emphasis on community building and future directions. The morning session featured talks on facilities from Claire Dancer (University of Birmingham), Kai Sun (University of Southampton and Ryan Bower (Imperial College London).
After a coffee break, further contributions from Marc Holderied (University of Bristol), Jisun Im (University of Warwick), and Mingchao Liu (University of Birmingham) explored bio-inspired manufacturing, additive techniques, and precision fabrication. The networking lunch that followed proved especially valuable, with many attendees noting the opportunity to engage directly with researchers outside their immediate discipline.
The final technical session included talks by Nae?mi Leo (University of Loughborough), Katie Shanks (University of Exeter), and Claire Dancer (University of Birmingham), reinforcing the importance of cross?disciplinary approaches and collaboration between design, manufacturing, and testing communities. The conference concluded with a poster prize presentation with the prize of Best Poster won by Jacopo Lavazza.
Dr Claire Dancer (joint lead of the UKMMN) delivered a powerful reminder of what it will take to translate research excellence into manufacturing capability. It is clear that the UK urgently needs more materials scientists, and that begins with cultivating talent through rigorous, well?designed PhD programmes. If we want a workforce capable of manufacturing next?generation metamaterials, we must train scientists who understand both the science and the realities of production.
Dr Dancer also challenged the myth that metamaterials must be perfect. Instead, the key question is: ‘What is the acceptable window of functionality?’
Understanding the margin of error that still enables performance is essential for real?world products.
Perhaps the biggest hurdle Dr Dancer highlighted is scale?up. Many academic papers overlook manufacturability entirely. Bridging this gap will require targeted funding, industry–academic collaboration, and teams built deliberately around the full process, from materials development to production engineering.
Reflections and impact
Overall, the 1st Metamaterials Manufacturing Conference highly successful and timely. It provided a much?needed forum for sharing challenges and identified common barriers. Participants left with a clearer sense of how manufacturing considerations can and must shape future metamaterials research, as well as renewed enthusiasm for collaborative approaches to scale?up and translation.
The conference marked an important step towards establishing a community of metamaterials manufacturing experts, laying strong foundations for future meetings, collaborations, and joint initiatives under the UK Metamaterials Network.
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