The UK’s ambitions to increase productivity and prosperity, and the legislation to set into law the requirement to become a Net Zero carbon emitter by 2050, give impetus to the need to ‘ramp up’ innovation to create alternative technologies and to eradicate societal and economic reliance on fossil fuels across the full range of industrial sectors. This includes energy supply, transport, heating, food chains, telecommunications, healthcare and consumer goods. The growing recognition of the need for the ‘climate emergency’ to be tackled as an immediate priority alongside changing public attitudes to consumption, combined with the government’s stated intention to ‘build back better’ and ‘build back greener’ in the wake of the Covid‑19 pandemic, drives increasing urgency in achieving sustainability. As well as playing a key role in shaping effective and co‑ordinated technology and industry strategies for developing and adopting new solutions, organisations operating across the Innovation, Research & Technology (IRT) sector can make an important difference by successfully implementing their own sustainability strategies. This new forum brings together IRT sector organisations to work collectively to advance sustainability by sharing best practice to improve business performance.
About AIRTO
AIRTO is the Association of Innovation, Research and Technology Organisations. Its membership comprises approximately sixty of the principal organisations operating in the UK’s Innovation, Research and Technology (IRT) sector. The IRT sector has a combined turnover of £6.9Bn, employing over 57,000 scientific and technical staff (equivalent to the academic staffing of the Russell Group of universities) and, for comparison, it is significantly larger than the network of Fraunhofer Institutes in Germany both in size and its scope of activities. The sector contributes £34Bn to UK GDP. AIRTO’s members work at the interface between academia and industry, for both private and public sector clients.
Members include independent Research and Technology Organisations, Catapult Centres, Public Sector Research Establishments, National Laboratories, and some privately held innovation companies.
For further information, please contact:
enquiries@airto.co.uk
