The UK Network+ for Sustainable Coatings, led by researchers at Northumbria University and Newcastle University, will establish a national hub to coordinate research, innovation and industry collaboration across the UK's coatings ecosystem.
We supported the proposal and are among the partners helping to shape the network's vision for more sustainable and circular materials systems. A total of 22 other organisations - including business giants AkzoNobel and Procter and Gamble, several specialist firms, a collection of UK public bodies and nine universities - have also signed up to the network.
The coatings sector is worth £45bn per year to the UK economy and supports 635,000 jobs, as well as playing a critical role across strategically important industries including energy, transport, healthcare, defence and advanced manufacturing. However, innovation is often fragmented, creating barriers to the development and adoption of more sustainable alternatives.
The new Network Plus aims to address these challenges by bringing together researchers, businesses, Catapults, policymakers and other stakeholders to accelerate the transition towards high-performance, low-impact surface technologies.
The network aligns with the UK's National Materials Innovation Strategy and focuses on advanced surface technologies, one of the strategy's key high-growth opportunity areas. It is also delivering key aspects of our roadmap to sustainable polymers in liquid formulations (PLFs) by 2040.
PLFs are found in millions of products, including paints, coatings, detergents, cosmetics and agrochemicals. The RSC estimates that more than 85% of all PLFs produced globally – around 31 million metric tonnes each year – are used in the paints and coatings, inks and coatings, and adhesives and sealants sectors.
Transitioning these materials away from fossil-derived feedstocks and towards more circular, sustainable systems represents one of the biggest opportunities for reducing the environmental impact of essential industrial and consumer products.
Through coordinated research and innovation activities, the network will support the development of coatings and surface technologies that reduce reliance on hazardous chemistries and fossil-derived feedstocks, improve resource efficiency, enable circular design approaches and extend product lifetimes.
Activities will include support for proof-of-concept projects and demonstrators, development of shared data, testing and modelling approaches, and programmes to strengthen UK capability in sustainable coating design, digital materials science and AI-enabled materials development.
Join the sustainable PLFs revolution
We have teamed up with industry leaders to create a roadmap to sustainable PLFs. We brought together key stakeholders to investigate what could done, and this led to the formation of our Sustainable PLFs Task Force.
Together, this group of industry leaders and experts has created our roadmap to launch a sustainable PLFs revolution.
Our roadmap sets out one ambition:
To achieve a transition to sustainable PLFs by 2040.
Two missions to catalyse transformation:
- Develop and scale biodegradable PLFs by 2030. We aim to effectively mitigate the environmental impact of those PLFs that cannot be collected and recycled.
- Advance circular economy infrastructure for PLFs by 2030. We aim to set a standard for the recycling and circularity of PLFs by 2030 and to facilitate cross-sector collaboration.
- Read the roadmap and learn how and why we are working to transform PLFs to make them more sustainable.
The Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council (EPSRC) - the main UK government agency for funding research and postgraduate training in engineering and the physical sciences, and part of the Department for Science, Innovation and Technology-sponsored body UK Research and Innovation - has pledged its support.
Newcastle and Northumbria Universities will run the project with Innovate UK Business Connect, with the EPSRC funding the initiative for 42 months.
Professor Elizabeth Gibson
Professor Elizabeth Gibson, of Newcastle University, said: “Today's coatings technologies are essential to modern life, but many rely on resource-intensive manufacturing processes and materials that are difficult to recover or recycle at end of life.
“This network will create a national platform to connect expertise across disciplines and sectors, enabling the UK to accelerate the development of sustainable surface technologies while maintaining industrial competitiveness.”
Professor Matt Unthank, of Northumbria University, added: “Having led coatings and surfaces research projects for many years, from both industrial roles and as an academic at Northumbria University, I have seen first hand the challenges involved in forging long-lasting, open research collaborations between industry and academia. This Network+ will create, support and nurture these collaborations, strengthening this critical UK industry into the future.”
Its goals strongly align with wider efforts across the materials and chemicals sectors to move from linear to circular systems.
The Network Plus reflects recommendations from our Sustainable Polymers in Liquid Formulations (PLFs) roadmap, which calls for greater collaboration across industry, academia, government and funders to accelerate innovation in sustainable materials. The roadmap identified coatings, paints and other formulated products as priority areas where action is needed to reduce dependence on fossil-derived feedstocks, improve circularity and develop materials that are sustainable by design.
Professor Anju Massey-Brooker
Professor Anju Massey-Brooker, Technical Lead, PLFs 2040 Initiative at the Royal Society of Chemistry, said: “Paints and coatings are essential to modern life. They protect critical infrastructure, improve durability and performance, and support industries from energy and transport to healthcare and manufacturing.
"Our Sustainable Polymers in Liquid Formulations roadmap showed that more than 85% of all PLFs are used in the paints and coatings, inks and coatings, and adhesives and sealants sectors. That means innovation in these sectors has the potential to deliver a significant sustainability impact.
“The transition to sustainable materials cannot be achieved by individual organisations working alone. This new network brings together researchers, industry, policymakers and innovators around a shared challenge, accelerating the development of coatings that use more sustainable feedstocks, support circularity and continue to deliver the performance society relies on.”
The network will act as a national coordination platform, helping to align research priorities with industrial needs while strengthening the UK's position as a leader in sustainable materials innovation.
Among the benefits available to network members are access to specialist facilities, funding for feasibility studies and secondments, and the ability to make use of a directory of facilities, datasets and expertise.
Researchers from the network will today provide an overview of its ambitions and planned activities during a presentation at the Sustainable Polymers in Liquid Formulations Summit 2026, which is being hosted at our Burlington House office. A full recap of the summit will be published on our website later this week.
Founding members of the UK Network+ for Sustainable Coatings
Industry | Bodies and national capability | Universities |
AkzoNobel Procter & Gamble Triton Hydrogen Walker Subsea Enshore Subsea Hydrostar Europe Kona Clean Teknologies | Royal Society of Chemistry British Coatings Federation Henry Royce Institute CPI (Centre for Process Innovation) Innovate UK Business Connect Sunderland Software City Urban Foresight | Newcastle Northumbria Oxford Cambridge Imperial College London Durham Nottingham Birmingham Teesside |