Metal-organic frameworks (MOFs) are porous materials comprised of metal nodes/clusters and organic linkers. MOFs have attracted extensive interest from academia and industry owing to their unprecedented porosity and structural and functional diversity; the MOF market is set to reach >£20bn by 2032 (Global Market Insights Inc.). Applications of MOFs including sensors, catalysts (e.g. to transform carbon dioxide into chemical feedstocks), drug delivery and in pollutant capture offer huge potential for addressing key global challenges in healthcare, energy, and mitigation of environmental pollution. However, there is limited understanding of the formation processes of MOFs and current methods for discovering and optimising MOFs rely on trial-and-error and are poorly reproducible. Consequently, a targeted materials discovery and optimization is not possible, the complexity of materials produced is limited, and scale-up takes many years/is not possible as conditions optimised in batch are not readily translatable to scaled up processing. The proposed research will revolutionise the way in which MOFs are discovered, prepared, and applied by redressing gaps in mechanistic understanding of reactions and providing new synthetic protocols for targeted synthesis, including routes to scale-up. This will be achieved by developing automated flow microwave platforms equipped with real-time analyses capable of self-optimization guided by evolutionary algorithms; underpinned by new fundamental understanding of crystallisation processes for MOFs. This will enable faster production of MOFs for targeted applications (e.g. catalysis, drug delivery) without wasting time, energy, or chemical resources and overcome considerable issues with reproducibility, which currently hinders MOF research and their commercial exploitation.

The Centre for Rapid Online Analysis of Reactions (ROAR) at Imperial College London was established in 2018, with the award of a strategic equipment grant, and offers three main capabilities: High-throughput automated reaction platforms (robots) for screening reactions in parallel; in situ analytics for studying reaction progress (kinetics); and continuous flow reactors. The primary objective of ROAR is to provide access to capital equipment to support data-led research, including statistical approaches and data analysis associated with kinetic and high-throughput experimentation. During the first phase of its operation, ROAR has successfully established itself as a UK Flagship facility for the EPSRC Dial-a-Molecule Grand Challenge, and recognised by Imperial College as a Centre of Excellence. During this period ROAR has provided support to both Imperial College research groups and external users via open calls for proposals, fostering the growth of a user community that brings together over 85 groups from across the UK, including SME's, as well as global companies looking for the unique technological capabilities. In Phase II of the project, we wish to expand our activities to provide more training material for centres for doctoral training, and to support a new academic strategy at Imperial (DigiFAB Institute). The Resources Only award will allow us to expand our Operations Team, needed to implement workflows to improve sharing and accessibility of our equipment, by operating an equipment loan pool, and remote experiments. Over this period, we will also be assessing the user demand and feedback, to identify sustainable pathways forward.

Currently, most of the manufacturing the high-value chemicals such as agrochemicals and pharmaceuticals, are performed in 'batch' reactors, where the chemical feedstocks (largely petrochemicals based) are converted into the product through a sequence of 'units of operations', which includes several chemical transformations, and purification steps. As the volume of each reactor is fixed, some of these operations, if not the entire sequence, have to be repeated, in order to meet the market demand. Very often, batch-to-batch variation in quality can result, which has to be monitored closely at each stage of the process in order to meet stringent regulatory requirements for product purity. Conversely, in a continuous flow process, the individual units of operation are integrated to enable an uninterrupted flow of material and product. Inline analytics (sensors and detectors) can also be implemented to monitor the quality of the produced product in real-time. As the entire process operates non-stop ('steady state'), the volume of production is no longer limited by the reactor size. Potentially, a continuous process is more efficient in saving costs, energy, and time, without comprising product quality. Traditionally, high-value chemical products, such as agrochemicals and pharmaceuticals, are produced using batch reactors, as they are usually required in small volumes. In more recent years, there are significant economical and sustainability drivers for the chemical industry to adopt the use of continuous flow processes. However, their implementation is not easy; as continuous reactors tend to be less flexible, in terms of modifying them to produce different products. The ambition of the IConIC Partnership is to redesign the continuous process: from a fully-integrated, single-purpose unit, towards a flexible 'plug-and-play' system, where each unit of operation ('module') can be replaced or substituted easily without affecting the overall performance of the continuous process. This will require a better understanding of how the interplay between molecular properties, timescales of reactions (reaction kinetics), and process parameters. For industrial implementation, additional factors (e.g. costs, sustainability and regulatory requirements) also need to be taken into consideration to justify the capital investment needed to switch from batch to flow production. Over the past 5 years, BASF has been working with ICL to foster an active 'Flow Chemistry' community involving 50 researchers at both institutions. The IConIC partnership will not cement the relationship by initiating a programme of exciting and ambition research projects to translate the benefits of Flow Chemistry from the R&D lab into industrial practice. An important aspect is an emphasis on a seamless data flow and translation process across the WPs, including decision-making under uncertainty, multi-fidelity design of experiments, transfer learning, and proof-of-concept demonstration for scale-up. A key feature of IConIC is the inclusion of a number of other UK-based industrial partners to form a 'vertical consortium' along the value chain. Over the period of the grant, the Partnership will be expanded to include additional academic and industrial partners at the appropriate junctures, to leverage synergistic values. Ultimately this will enable the UK to take leadership in continuous flow manufacturing.

The use of autonomous robotic technologies is increasingly common for applications such as manufacturing, warehousing, and driverless vehicles. Automated robots have been used in chemistry research, too, but their widespread application is limited by the cost of the technology, and the need to build a bespoke automated version of each instrument that is required. We have developed a different approach by using mobile 'robotic chemists' that can work within a relatively standard laboratory, replicating the dexterous tasks that are carried out by human researchers. These robots can operate autonomously, 24/7, for extended periods, and they can therefore cover a much larger search space that would usually be possible. Also, the robots are driven by artificial intelligence (AI) and can search highly complex multidimensional experimental spaces, offering the potential to find revolutionary new materials. They can also carry out multiple separate experiments in parallel, if needed, to make optimal use of the available hardware in a highly cost-effective way. Our proposal is to establish a globally unique user facility in Liverpool that covers a broad range of materials research problems, allowing the discovery of useful products such as clean solar fuels catalysts, catalysts for plastics recycling, medicinal materials, and energy materials. This facility will allow researchers from both academic teams and from industry to access this new technology, which would otherwise be unavailable to them. Because the automation approach is modular, it will be possible for users to bring along specific equipment for their experiments to be 'dropped in' temporarily to create new workflows, greatly expanding the possible user base. The scope here is very broad because we have recently developed methods that give these robots have very high placement precision (+/- 0.12 mm): to a large extent, if a human can use the instrument, then so can the robot. We have identified, initially, a group of 25 academic users across 12 universities as 'day one' prospective users, as well as 7 industrial organisations with a specific interest in this technology. The potential user base, however, is far broader than this, and we will solicit applications for access throughout the project and beyond. This will be managed by a Strategic Management Team and an Operational Management Team that involves academics as well as permanent technical, administrative, and business development staff in the Materials Innovation Factory in Liverpool. Our overall objective is to build a sustainable AI-driven robotic facility that will provide a unique competitive advantage for the UK to discover new functional materials on a timescale that would be impossible using more conventional research methodology. In addition to focusing on excellent science, we will also consider diversity and career stage when prioritising access; for example, even a short, one-week visit to this autonomous facility might lead to 100's or even 1000's of new materials with associated property measurements, which might radically transform a PhD project or the change the direction of the research programme for an Early Career Researcher. This facility will therefore build the base of the UK research pyramid, as well as supporting activity that is already internationally leading, and our day-one user base includes researchers at all career stages.

Pharmaceutical R&D is a powerhouse in the UK, valued at £4.7 billion in 2019, equivalent to nearly a fifth of all R&D spending by industry across the UK economy. Projections indicate that it will generate an impressive £45 billion for the broader economy in the next 30 years from the 2019 R&D investment alone. However, it faces a significant skills gap, with traditional doctoral training programs failing to adequately prepare graduates for the dynamic and diverse demands of the industry. Research has tended to focus on empirical product development or specific process operations, leaving graduates unprepared to innovate in dynamic, multifunctional teams and explore diverse challenges, roles and career paths. This limitation not only hinders their potential but also stalls industry progress. Having a multi-skilled workforce is of paramount importance to accelerate sustainable medicine development and the introduction of ground-breaking patient-centric medicines. These elements are not only vital for enhancing the competitive edge of pharmaceutical manufacturing in the UK but also for guaranteeing that the future pharmaceutical industry is sustainable, resilient and human-centric - key pillars of the Industry 5.0 transformation. CEDAR will address this critical need by training 90 future leaders with multidisciplinary skills that combine pharmaceutical science and engineering with AI, data analytics, and robotics. CEDAR employs a cohort-based approach to equip graduates not only with technical proficiency but also with skills in leadership, collaboration, entrepreneurship, sustainability, and industrial and regulatory expertise. This well-rounded skill set will position them to thrive in modern, project-driven, cross-functional teams and therefore create excellent career opportunities. CEDAR's research projects aim to provide a digital, and advanced processing toolbox that covers the entire system from drug particle creation to precise prediction of their performance in the body. This will be achieved through the development and exploitation of digitally-enabled platform technologies - cyber-physical systems (CPS). These emerging technologies are crucial for accelerating drug development, particularly for emerging medicines like nanomedicines, peptides, and oligonucleotides where material sparing approaches are key and where patient-centricity is paramount. Recognising the transformative potential of CPS in the pharmaceutical industry, CEDAR's graduates will contribute innovative CPS solutions and pioneering methods that promise to revolutionise how future medicines are developed and manufactured. CEDAR draws upon the expertise of an internationally-leading, multidisciplinary team spanning four universities, working in conjunction with industry partners and non-profit organisations. With access to state-of-the-art facilities and dedicated operational support, CEDAR is exceptionally well-placed to address the skills gap and deliver the transformative research needed to drive the pharmaceutical industry towards sustainability, resilience, and human-centricity and deliver wider societal, economic and environmental benefit for all.