EPSRC Centre for Power Electronics

The Centre will be the UK's internationally recognised provider of world-leading,

underpinning power electronics research, combining the UKs best academic talent. It will
focus on sustaining and growing power electronics in the UK by delivering transformative
and exploitable new technologies, highly skilled people and by providing long-term
strategic value to the UK power electronics industry.

Centre activities are divided into three main strands: research, community and pathways to
impact. Our research activities will bring together the leading academic research groups from
across the UK to address key research challenges, build critical mass and develop a widely
recognised internationally leading research capability. We will develop a UK research
strategy for power electronics which will build on foresight activities to inform our research
direction. Our community support activities will build capacity through the training of
researchers at doctoral and postdoctoral level. We will extend our research funding to the
broader community through themed calls for pump priming, strategic support and feasibility
projects. In addition we will support and coordinate responses to major initiatives from
national and international funding bodies. Pathways to impact will include the establishment
and development of the Centre brand and communication mechanisms, the development and
implementation of an exploitation plan, which benefits UK industry, support for government
policy development and the development of collaborative links with key power electronic
research teams around the world.
Research Activities
The Centre programme focuses on fundamental power electronics research at low technology
readiness level (TRL) and hence supports a wide range of application areas with a medium to
long-term time horizon. Key challenges to be addressed are: increased efficiency, increased
power density, increased robustness, lower electromagnetic interference (EMI), higher levels
of integration and lower through life cost. The work programme is split into four high-level
themes of Devices, Components, Converters and Drives, each of which will address the key
challenges, supported by a coordinating Hub. The themes will deliver the majority of the
technical output of the Centre.
Strategy for industrial engagement
Many UK academic research groups already work closely with industry and we expect this to
continue, supported by a variety of mechanisms. The creation of the Virtual Centre will
provide much-needed additional funding for underpinning research, allowing us to both
broaden and deepen our investigations, with long-term benefits to industry. Our aim is to
create an environment in which academe-industry collaboration can flourish on a number of
levels and with industrial partners ranging from the smallest enterprises to global
corporations. The views and opinions of our industrial partners will be used to inform the
strategic direction of the fundamental research, whilst research results will be made available
for exploitation; for example, through EPSRC/TSB-funded follow-on projects and through
university-industry strategic partnerships. The Centre will also fund knowledge transfer
partnerships with industry where these build on Centre research. Our success will ultimately
be measured by the long-term impact on innovation and skills in the UK power electronics
sector and industrial engagement is thus fundamental to our strategy.