The Government announced that it will put £50m into graphene research "subject to approval of the full business case being developed by the EPSRC and the Technology Strategy Board", said the Department for Business Innovation and Skills (BIS). "Additional resource cost will be determined during the development of the business case."
So is the money really there?
"The money has been set-aside," a BIS spokesman assured Electronics Weekly. "The Technology Strategy Board and EPSRC have still to complete writing the business case."
When released, the money will go into the 'Global Research and Technology Hub'.
"A competition to establish and operate the graphene hub will be launched by the EPSRC/TSB subject to the approval of the business case," said BIS. "There are graphene centres of research excellence at Manchester, Cambridge, Lancaster, Exeter, Bath, Oxford and Durham universities and Imperial College London."
The form the Hub will take appears to be up to the research community, and it could be as widely spread as additional facilies in each of these universities.
"There will have to be a headquarters somewhere: a physical centre," said the spokesman. "We will have to wait for the competition to see what the researchers think is the best model for the Hub."
Graphene can exhibit incredible carrier mobility and looks likely to be compatible with planar chip processing as well as offering an alternative to increasingly expensive ITO as a transparent conductor for displays.
It was discovered in 2004 at the University of Manchester by Professor Andre Geim and Dr Konstantin Novoselov.
Since then, worldwide efforts have been made to exploit it.
"The Hub will ensure leading researchers stay in Britain, leverage private sector investment and help develop a home grown high-tech industry," claimed BIS.
