The UK Advanced Tooling Grand Challenge – developing composites capability for Aerospace and critical manufacturing tooling supply chains.
How to engage:
Attend the Composites UK Tooling Event on 24th March to meet the Programme team and discuss challenges in scope (registration closes 4.30pm 19th March).
Attend the online briefing event on 31st March – click here for details and registration.
Download an Expression of Interest Form and return the completed form to info@axillium.com Submission deadline 5pm Thursday 9th April 2026.
Download the Challenge Form with full details.
Key information and dates:
| Funding Available | Grants of up to £18m matched by industry funding per organisation |
| Solutions Sought | Novel approaches to advanced tooling challenges at TRL3-6 from organisations of all sizes and scale |
| Programme Duration | Up to 3 three years, commencing January 2027 |
| Programme Approach | An industry led, multi-partner, cross sector collaborative R&D for industry, academia, and research organisations |
| EOI Opens | Thursday 19 March 2026 |
| Launch Event | Tuesday 24 March 2026 |
| Online Briefing Event | Tuesday 31 March 2026 |
| EOI closes | Thursday 9 April 2026 |
| Solution Provider Workshop | Thursday 16 April 2026 |
| Solution Providers Invited to join consortium | Thursday 23 April 2026 |
| Consortium Formed | Thursday 30 April 2026 |
| Application kick-off | Tuesday 5 May 2026 |
The Grand Challenge
Last year, the Aerospace Technology Institute (ATI) published a Market Spotlight: Growing UK Composite Capability and convened an industry-led Composites Working Group, which has identified the UK needs to develop a high-rate automated, intelligent, and fully instrumented, supply chain for turnkey advanced tooling solutions, to satisfy demand of technology in critical manufacturing processes. This aligns with the recommendations of the Aerospace Growth Partnership, Strategic Competency Analysis.
GKN Aerospace has volunteered to lead an Advanced Tooling Grand Challenge programme developing aerospace, and cross sector, tooling outcomes with support from an ATI strategic programme funded initiative, where relevant.
To achieve this ambition, solutions are being sought from both UK and international organisations willing to collaborate and invest to develop UK capability with support from ATI Grant Funding.
The Opportunity
To address the Composites Working Group’s central challenge of scaling UK capability, GKN Aerospace and Challenge Owners from across the sector are inviting organisations to join the industrially led Grand Challenge programme to develop an integrated tooling capability by 2030. To achieve this ambition, solutions are being sought from both UK and international organisations willing to locate and invest in developing UK capability.
The focus of the programme will be to collaborate on an application for ATI funding in 2026, and, upon successful funding, engage in a sprint project, of up to three-year collaboration from 2027 to develop and demonstrate both technology and capability to meet the Tooling Challenges in the UK by 2030.
Challenge areas
Solution Providers should consider the list of potential use cases when putting forward an interest, while not intended as an exhaustive list these use cases address known gaps in UK capability.
The output of the programme will focus on collaborative demonstration of the core technologies as well as supporting process, methods and tools.
Outcomes demonstrated from the programme must target at least TRL5-6 and show clear route to market that ensure viable business cases and continued support.
Areas of interest include (extracted from the upcoming ATI Composites Strategy):
- Alternative Materials for CTE equivalence – Exploring the use of substitute materials designed to match the coefficient of thermal expansion (CTE) requirements, to enhance compatibility and performance within composite tooling applications.
- Design and Simulation Methods and Tools for Right-First-Time Tooling – Developing and applying advanced design and simulation techniques to achieve precise tooling results on the first attempt, minimising costly rework and optimising production efficiency.
- Re-usable and Re-configurable Tooling – Investigating approaches for creating tooling that can be reused or easily reconfigured, supporting flexible manufacturing processes and reducing waste.
- Intelligent Tooling for Advanced Composite Processing – Integrating intelligent features within tooling systems to facilitate advanced composite processing, enabling enhanced monitoring and adaptive control during production.
- Novel Sensing for Process Control – Implementing new sensing technologies to improve process control, ensuring quality, consistency, and reliability in composite manufacturing operations.
- Integrated heating and cooling for large scale and high integrity – Designing tooling with embedded heating and cooling systems to maintain optimal conditions for large-scale composite production, ensuring structural integrity and uniformity.
- Multi-Material Tooling for Enhanced Quality and Durability – Utilising a combination of materials within tooling solutions to achieve superior quality and durability, tailored to the demands of composite manufacturing.
- Vacuum Integrity of Complex Multi-Split Tools – Addressing the vacuum integrity challenges associated with complex, multi-split tooling configurations, essential for high-quality composite part production.
- Advanced Machining and Metallic Joining Technologies – Exploring innovative machining techniques and metallic joining methods to improve tooling performance and longevity in composite applications.
- Tool coatings and injected finishes, alternative to PFAS – REACH compliant – Developing tool coatings and injected finishes that provide effective alternatives to PFAS, ensuring compliance with REACH regulations and promoting safer manufacturing practices.
- Rapid response tooling manufacturing methods – Implementing rapid manufacturing methods to enable quick response in tooling production, supporting dynamic and flexible composite manufacturing environments.
- Metamaterials in Tooling Applications – Investigating the use of metamaterials within tooling applications to unlock new properties and functionalities for composite production.
- Automation and Integration of Tooling Operations: Tooling as a System – Advancing the automation and integration of tooling processes, viewing tooling as a holistic system to streamline operations and improve overall manufacturing outcomes.
Solution Provider Workshop – 16th April 2026
Organisations which are successful in the Expression of Interest process will be invited to meet Challenge Owners at the GKN Global Technology Centre for a Solution Provider Workshop 16th April – please keep this date free.
This event will provide Solution Providers to meet Challenge Owners and Programme team and discuss the Grand Challenge proposal and address any follow up questions on the role
Following the Solution Provider Workshop a final decision will be made on the consortium partners to take forward into the formal stages of the ATI strategic programme.
At this point successful Solution Providers will be invited to join the Grand Challenge and develop a full funding application.
Eligibility and Confidentiality
The consortium is open to sole innovators, industry, academic and research organisations of all types and sizes.
All information you provide to us as part of your proposal, whether submitted directly or through the workshop process, will be handled in confidence, please though ensure that no proprietary information is shared.
By submitting your EOI you are confirming your organisation’s unqualified acceptance of these terms and conditions. For successful expressions of interest Non-Disclosure and commercial terms are covered below.
Non-Disclosure:
All consortium members will be required to sign a multi-partner Non-Disclosure agreement from conception until the completion of the execution of the Grant Funding in delivery of the programme.
In line with ATI requirements a consortium level Collaboration Agreement will be agreed upon submission of the Full Stage Application and executed on receipt of the Grant Offer Letter.
Commercial Terms:
GKN Aerospace has appointed Axillium Research and Composites UK as independent Advisors to develop and support the Tooling Grand Challenge from conception until the completion of the execution of the Grant Funded delivery of the programme.
- Commercial services will be engaged directly via Axillium Research as an independent shared service to each organisation within the consortium.
- In their capacity as independent Advisors, Axillium Research & Composites UK will provide the services for support to all Consortium Members for the ATI Funding Application.
- Shared service costs will based on business size in line with current UK definitions of large, small, and medium sized enterprises. Academic and Research Technology Organisations will be treated as large enterprises.
Service Costs
- Shared service costs will based on business size in line with current UK definitions of large, small, and medium sized enterprises. Academic and Research Technology Organisations will be treated as large enterprises.
- Commercial services will be engaged directly via Axillium Research as a shared service to each organisation.