When developing the UK National Strategy for Quantum Technologies, the Strategic Advisory Board identified increasing international engagement as one of five areas of focus in order to maximise the benefit of the programme to the UK.

The Strategy recognises the importance of the UK continuing to support international collaboration as a means to attract the best talent. To confirm the commitment of the National Programme in international engagement, EPSRC with the support of Innovate UK will shortly be inviting expressions of interest for Innovation Chairs to bolster the existing network of capability and expertise in the innovation space by recruiting internationally recognised academic and industrial researchers to UK academic positions.

Building on existing investments, the Innovation Chairs call will provide up to £10M for 4 – 5 awards for four years of support (up to 50% of time paid) to establish a critical mass of technology development and industrial engagement activities, helping to catalyse wider community activity.

The call document will be published on the EPSRC website at the end of August / beginning of September and the closing date for the expressions of interest will be in early October. More information will be posted in due course on the EPSRC website.