FISC: Unlocking Innovation Through Cross-Sector Collaboration
Monday, 16 March 2026
A Foundation Industries Perspective
FISC was born out of the need to collaborate across the UKs highest emitting industries. Under the Transforming Foundation Industries Challenge, the Henry Royce Institute, Lucideon, Glass Futures, MPI, and CPI came together to explore and address challenges within UK manufacturing. Working across themes including alternative fuels, sustainable materials and digital sensing and process optimisation the consortium has unlocked and increased the UK’s overall research and development (R&D) capabilities and driven forward investment and greener growth.
Since Sarah Harrold and Lucy Smith took over as Co-Directors, there has been a switch to a focus on market-driven innovation, but the need for collaboration remains, so much so that it is one of FISCs values.
Why Cross-Sector Collaboration Matters
Foundation Industries Ventures (FIVe) have highlighted the different barriers to innovation in the UK Foundation Industries and cross-sector collaboration has shown that these barriers can be overcome.
Accelerating Knowledge Transfer:
Different sectors bring unique technical insights, operational challenges, and regulatory landscapes. Sharing this knowledge helps refine innovations to be more robust and scalable.
De-risking Investment:
Joint ventures and shared pilot programmes reduce the financial burden on individual organisations, making it easier to invest in early-stage technologies.
Creating Systemic Change:
Many sustainability challenges, such as energy efficiency, carbon capture, and circular economy models, require systemic solutions that span multiple industries.
Unlocking New Markets:
Collaboration can lead to hybrid solutions that open up entirely new commercial opportunities, such as low-carbon construction materials or recycled industrial by-products.
Examples of Impactful Collaboration
- Transforming Foundation Industries (TFI) Challenge
Funded by UKRI, and the catalyst for FISC and FIVe, this programme was only eligible to applications involving two or more of the six foundation Industries, thereby ensuring collaboration from the start. The challenge supported cross-sector projects from feasibility through to demonstration, enabling step changes in the sustainability of materials across a wide range of markets. From feasibility studies about industrial symbiosis or new bio-based approaches to chemical manufacture, all the way to through-supply consortia reinventing design for circular economy in automotive markets, or symbiotic creation of cement and concrete that challenge kick started innovation and had wide reaching impacts. You can read more about them here.
- Economic Materials Innovation for the Sustainable and Efficient Use of Resources (EconoMISER)
The EconoMISER project enabled investment across FISC to enhance capabilities to enable green growth and inward investment into the UK Foundation Industries. This includes an upgrade to MPIs 7tonne Electric Arc, a geopolymer scale-up facility at Lucideon, and a cullet collection and handling system at Glass Futures.
Alongside these capital installations, feasibility projects included a collaboration between the Henry Royce Institute and Accrol Papers (now part of the Navigator Company) to investigate sustainability claims in the paper sector and the development of a machine learning continuous improvement platform.
- Re-Lime and FIVe
ReLime, a start-up that aims to recycle waste slag back into limestone for reuse, attended a FIVenable business strategy sprint to better understand potential routes to market and map out a plan for growth. The business strategy sprint enabled the Founder to better understand his business model, pinpoint the gaps and weaknesses, are consider the bigger pictures from the customer and investors point of view. ReLime have also undertaken scale-up work with MPI, enabled by the Innovate UK Business Growth Fund.
Looking Ahead
To truly unlock the commercial potential of innovation, we need to establish long-term partnerships that span across the whole value chain. This means:
- Co-investing in shared infrastructure
- Aligning regulatory frameworks across sectors
- Creating open innovation platforms
- Embedding sustainability metrics into procurement and funding models
The Foundation Industries Sustainability Consortium is committed to facilitating these collaborations, acting as a bridge between sectors, and ensuring that innovation translates into tangible, scalable impact.
If you’re interested in providing valuable insights into FISCs market-driven approach, you can respond to our survey here.
Visit FISC at The Advanced Materials Show on stand 626.