Seize The Opportunity To Invest In A Sustainable Future

This is a great opportunity to support the industry, showcase your machinery, and demonstrate the latest glass annealing technology for flat glass and/or container glass production lines at our pilot facility, St Helens, UK for research and development (R&D), innovation and training.

What are the benefits?

• Market new developments to a globally recognised audience
• Trial unprecedented container and flat glass technologies on an active production line.
• Use our open access facility to network with the glass industry and supply chain.
• Provide on-site training under glass – both classroom & practical.
• Showcase equipment in the world’s first open-access glass R&D centre.
• Carry out further research & development within a live glass plant environment.

This is a development opportunity, we are not building a standard glass plant but rather an experimentation ground by pulling together equipment from various areas of expertise. This is an open collaboration opportunity for all suppliers to get involved and showcase as well as develop their equipment at the world’s first openly accessible Global Centre of Excellence for glass.

If you are interested and want more information, please contact the membership team.

Glass Futures operates within confidentiality and IP parameters so this will be an excellent opportunity for your organisation or suppliers to support the industry by showcasing your machinery and demonstrating the latest flat glass and container annealing technology at our pilot facility.

The Global Centre of Excellence

Glass Futures is working to create a world-first Global Centre of Excellence, an experimental research and development (R&D) and training glass facility, with the long-term goal of making glass the low carbon material of choice.

Our goal is to accelerate innovation within global glass manufacturing by delivering and supporting new technologies, enabling world class training and demonstrating new resource-efficient processes. This new facility will bridge the Technology Readiness Level (TRL) gap between research and commercial implementation. Towards this goal Glass Futures has successfully been awarded over £15m of capital funding from UK Research and Innovation (UKRI), £7.1m to investigate low carbon fuels for the glass industry from the Department for Business, Energy, and Industrial Strategy (BEIS), £9m towards development gap funding from the Liverpool Combined Authority and significant amounts of private and industry led investment to match this funding commitment from the public sector.

The Glass Futures site will have full plant utilities and services to enable research at a commercially viable scale. In order to achieve this, Glass Futures, a not-for-profit Research and Technology Organisation (RTO), are operating a membership scheme with industry partners, academics and other research organisations, and suppliers for a collaborative approach. Glass Futures will use the facility to provide a platform for training and development to inspire a sustainable and productive global glass industry.

Our membership is focused on the global glass supply chain and as such has seen a number of major multinational organisations participating, garnering excellent growth in the past 2 years. The work of Glass Futures also has begun to look at other similar industries such as Steel and Ceramics, where the challenges and opportunities are very similar.