Metamaterials in the Real World: Industry Showcase 2025 Event Report
‘We wouldn’t be assembled here without the strong, diverse, committed community of scale that you are. This community is vital to the mission ahead.’
Prof Ian Youngs, Dstl
The UK Metamaterials Network’s (UKMMN) fourth Metamaterials in the Real-World Industry Showcase was held at the Institution of Mechanical Engineers’ (IMechE) beautiful premises at 1 Birdcage Walk on the 1st of December 2025.
It was a packed event with over 150 delegates from across academia, industry and government with over 60% of attendees from non-academic organisations, a marked increase in scale from the 2024 Industry Showcase. The event opened from the joint-leads of the UKMMN, Professor Alastair Hibbins (University of Exeter) and Dr Claire Dancer (University of Birmingham) who highlighted the building momentum and the wealth of activity in the past year from the UKMMN and the wider community. The IMechE’s Policy Lead Matthew Rooney welcomed attendees and highlighted the key recommendations from the Unlocking the Potential of Metamaterials Policy Report (launched in the evening event that followed the Showcase).
Across the day the attendees heard from brilliant speakers laying out the year in review and the upcoming opportunities: Dr Helen Rance (Science & Strategy Manager, UKMMN), Anne Crean (Associate Director Science, Business & Data Insights, Institute of Physics), Conrad Burke (MetaVC Partners) and Professor Ian Youngs (Chief Scientist – Advanced Materials, Dstl). The talks highlighted the importance of the metamaterials community and the Showcase in the wider mission to realise the potential of metamaterials. The community’s success in encouraging the inclusion of metamaterials in the UK Government’s Modern Industrial Strategy was highlighted as a seminal moment.
‘The UK has an expanding science base, a vibrant community of researchers and a growing pool of businesses that are engaging with metamaterials to solve industrial challenges.’
Anne Crean, Associate Director Science, Business & Data Insights, Institute of Physics
The speakers were followed by a panel discussion, chaired by Prof Michael Hinton (High Value Manufacturing Catapult) and featuring Prof Paul Monks (Chair of Henry Royce Institute), Caroline France (Head of Advanced Materials, Department for Science, Innovation and Technology (DSIT)), Dr Claire Dancer (Manufacturing Challenge lead of UKMMN), Prof Helen Gleeson (Founder, Auxetec), Prof Robert Lamb (CRTO Electronics Division, Leonardo), Prof Paul Monks CB (Chair of Royce, and former Chief Scientific Advisor to the Dept. for Energy Security and Net Zero), and Neil Witten (Innovation Lead for Advanced Materials, Innovate UK). The panel discussion brought to the fore both the UK’s strengths as the number-one country for research impact in the world, the need to convert this strength into outcomes, and the challenge posed by patenting research. This is the moment for action.
‘International metamaterials is up for grabs […] we are in the less than five years game.’
Professor Paul Monks, University of Leicester
‘I don’t think we can emphasise enough how much of a big deal having advanced materials recognised in the industrial strategy is, it shows materials not just being recognised as an enabler for other areas, but the Government recognising it is a real growth opportunity in its own right.’
Caroline France, DSIT
In the following session we were privileged to hear reflections on the panel from Professor Sir John Pendry (Imperial College London), founding father of metamaterials, and Dr Stuart Kitney (National Physical Laboratory (NPL)). In their reflections they laid out the incredible opportunities metamaterials offer, the need for standards to provide confidence and enable uptake, and we were left with the inspiring message from John Pendry that, ‘The ideas I like most are those hiding in plain sight […] if you can find the right questions, that is the real problem.’
There followed a superb set of lightning pitches featuring academic and industry presenters to the audience, spanning the Metamaterials Innovation Hub, the Digital Innovation and Circular Economy (DICE) Network+, applications for platinum group metals, AI-powered design to accelerate metamaterials innovation, patenting metamaterials, and photonic metasurfaces. The final part of the day opened with a ‘Little Black Book’ networking session run by the Developing Business Aware Academics, was a great success, running into the Metamaterials in the Real World Showcase, which displayed demonstrators and posters from across the spectrum of metamaterials applications, filled with a buzzing atmosphere throughout the afternoon.
Where next?
‘Throughout the day manufacturing metamaterials has been highlighted as both a challenge and a significant
opportunity for the UK. The UKMMN will play a vital role in this, including by community and
collaboration building at our first Manufacturing Conference in March 2026.’
Dr Claire Dancer, UKMMN
The UKMMN’s Industry Showcase 2025 has been an amazing success, made possible by the dedication and engagement of the UK metamaterials community. This community and the event, with its focus on applications and industry has been instrumental in driving awareness of the potential for metamaterials and the steps taken in the last year to realise this, including more than £15 million from EPSRC across: the Henry Royce Industrial Collaboration Programme, the MetaHub programme and the other two awards associated with the EPSRC 3D Nanoscale Metamaterials call.
The community has made incredible progress over the past year, continuing to grow and develop with the inclusion in the Modern Industrial Strategy signalling the need to act. The community roadmap led by the Metamaterials Strategy Action Group – a consortium of partners led by the DSIT, with Dstl, UKRI, HVMC, the Institute of Physics, NPL and UKMMN — will set out the roadmap for the next five to ten years for the UK, in John Pendry’s words, ‘metamaterials is an enabling technology […] you have the potential to do many things’.
And we look forward to seeing the community again at our upcoming events including the annual Conference & Forum on 16th-18th June 2026.
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