Cranfield University
World-class industrial and pilot-scale facilities, including water, clean energy, agriculture, aerospace and automotive, wind tunnels, welding and additive manufacturing.
Cranfield University’s strengths
EarthScale partners play a vital role in unlocking regional strengths and climate innovation opportunities across the UK. Cranfield University is one of six regional hubs, offering ventures access to its in-house expertise, specialist facilities, and local innovation ecosystem.
Each hub is supported by a dedicated manager who coordinates tailored support and engagement activities. Explore Cranfield’s strengths below.
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Background
Cranfield is a specialist postgraduate university with globally renowned expertise in science, technology, engineering and management.
Cranfield delivers applied research that has real-world impact – 88% of its research is world-leading or internationally excellent (REF2021).
Large-scale facilities and global industry partnerships enhance their innovative education. Cranfield is one of the few universities in the world to have its own airport, a unique environment for research. They are a six-time winner of the prestigious Queen’s Anniversary Prize, the highest national honour for educational institutions.
Regional strengths and facilities
The climate tech verticals and facilities that Cranfield offers to support scaling hardware-led climate innovation.
- Low carbon manufacturing: a growing cleantech sector across the region, waste-to-energy, and circular construction. Midlands Innovation projects and national manufacturing hubs.
- Aerospace and composites: Motorsport Valley, aerospace institutes and composites companies.
- Hydrogen tech and clean growth:focus on hydrogen technology scale-up and electrification of heat and transport.
- Environmental systems and circularity: bioenergy, solar, water, ecosystem services, natural capital initiatives and clean growth planning.
- Low carbon transport: East West Rail, EV infrastructure, transport decarbonisation.
Established partnerships
Cranfield University collaborates with a vast network across academia, industry, and professional bodies:
- Universities: Midlands Innovation, Arc Universities Group, Forging Ahead, Midlands Mindforge.
- Industry: Boeing, Rolls-Royce, Babcock, Airbus, Severn Trent, Airbus, Toyota, Siemens, National Gas, BP, Universal Studios, Lipton Teas and Infusions, Pepsico, multiple F1 teams (Mercedes, Red Bull, Ferrari) and more.
- Professional organisations: Institution of Engineering and Technology (IET), Institute of Mechanical Engineers (IMechE), Hydrogen Energy Association (HEA) and more.
Local innovation ecosystem
- Catapults: High Value Manufacturing, Manufacturing Technology Centre, Connected Places.
- Research programme and investment: Henry Royce Institute, Energy Research Accelerator, National Physics Laboratory, UKCRIC.
“Cranfield’s role within Earthscale is to support climate tech ventures in doing what’s hardest: moving from concept to scalable production. Climate change demands real-world solutions, and that means hardware – built, tested, and delivered at volume and scale. We bring decades of applied manufacturing expertise to help ventures navigate the practical realities of industrialisation, from process engineering to supply chain readiness. Our focus is on getting serious technologies ready to operate in the real economy, where they can make a measurable impact.”
John Patsavellas, Senior Lecturer in Manufacturing Management, Cranfield University
Our partners
A national network
Cranfield University
World-class industrial and pilot-scale facilities, including water, clean energy, agriculture, aerospace, automotive and more.
Imperial College
A collaboration between Undaunted and the Imperial Enterprise Lab; world-class research, deep climate expertise and a thriving innovation ecosystem centred in the White City Innovation District.
University of Derby
Their Institute for Innovation and Sustainable Engineering focuses on sustainable engineering solutions, supporting innovation in design, manufacturing, product lifecycle management and more.
University of Exeter
Home to 1500 climate and sustainability experts across 34 specialist environmental institutes and centres of excellence.
University of Leeds
Their Priestley Centre for Climate Futures is a world-leading climate centre that connects its climate experts with businesses, policymakers, and communities to transform how we address climate change.
University of Nottingham
State-of-the-art facilities that support sustainable manufacturing and low-carbon innovation.
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