The University of Cambridge has joined the Pitch-In Project, a £4.9 million project led by the University of Sheffield in collaboration with the Universities of Oxford and Newcastle. The teams will investigate the barriers to successful IoT take-up and strengthen digital manufacturing research programmes.

The aim of the project is to focus on four priority sectors that are early adopters of IoT: health and wellbeing, digital manufacturing, energy systems and smart cities. The Pitch-In Project teams will trial solutions, capture and share best practice learnings and outcomes.

Cambridge’s Institute of Manufacturing (IfM) has been awarded £1 million of the total funding to lead the manufacturing sector research, while also supporting the smart cities research.

“The project will provide funding for feasibility studies and demonstrators, as well as creating pathways to remove industrial knowledge transfer barriers in this field through the development of best practice guidelines,” said Dr Alexandra Brintrup, who will lead the manufacturing theme as Cambridge’s principal investigator for the Pitch-In Project. “Pitch-In greatly strengthens the IfM’s digital manufacturing research programme and supports engagement with the Cambridge cluster of high-technology companies.”

Professor Tim Minshall, head of IfM, said the adoption of digital technologies will be key to the ongoing competitiveness of UK manufacturing firms of all sizes. “We are really excited by the opportunity this project offers to accelerate research and its application in this critical technology area,” he said.

Pitch-In Project supports the government’s new Industrial Strategy by significantly enhancing the commercialisation prospects of UK IoT research and technology.

“Universities have stepped forward in these projects to show that they can do world-class commercialisation, alongside world-class science. I believe these projects present important innovations that should inform our strategic approach to commercialisation in UK research and innovation for the future,” said David Sweeney, executive chair of Research England, about the role of the project within the government’s Industrial Strategy.