Mapping UK’s stakeholder ecosystems of battery technologies and sustaining resilient battery manufacturing supply chains

Currently our world relies heavily on fossil fuels as energy supply. The power sector and the transport system alone account for about 80 percent of the energy mix (IEA, 2022). Electricity generation from renewables registered only 28.7% of energy mix in 2021 (IEA, 2021). Mitigating the risk of global climate change can only be effective if we

formulate and implement strategies to steer industries on to genuine paths of sustainability transitions (Zhang, 2024). UK has been a leading voice on achieving UN’s sustainable development goals (SDGs) by strategically formulating Net Zero policies and implementing decarbonisation innovations. The ambitious industrial strategy The Road to Zero was published in 2018 with an estimated investment of £1.5 billion, of which £317.75 million were invested in the Faraday Battery Challenge to develop UK manufacturers’ technological capabilities. According to UKRI, market opportunities for the UK battery value chains will grow to £12 billion by 2025 (UKRI, 2020). The UK strategic initiatives in developments of battery technologies and manufacturing need to be studied in the context of the intensification of global competition for battery technologies in the past few years due to the increasing demand for batteries, especially the Li-ion battery and lithium iron phosphate (LFP) battery

Whilst the upstream and the downstream supply chains form parts of the research, the focus of this project is primarily on manufacturing activities, consisting of both battery material manufacturing and battery cell manufacturing. Four research questions need to be answered by the completion of this research project:

RQ1: What are the current UK battery technology scale-up challenges concerning the demand for EVs and energy storage solutions?

RQ2: What are the current supply chain capabilities for Li-ion and LFP batteries and alternative battery technologies being developed in the UK?

RQ3: What are the policy and supply chain interventions to overcome scale-up challenges and their impact on UK manufacturing firms?

RQ4: How can resilient UK battery supply chain be developed and nurtured to increase the sustainable growth of UK based firms?

It is expected that the potential doctoral candidate will conduct empirical work in two phases. Firstly, the candidate need to compile an initial database of stakeholders within UK’s battery technology ecosystems, including organisations from both public and private sectors which have battery research or manufacturing capacities. This will be followed by questionnaire design and administration of a large sample survey. Upon completion of the required literature review and data collection, the candidate will analyse data using structural equation modelling (SEM) with either SPSS AMOS software or MPlus software through the theoretical lens of stakeholder ecosystems (Zhang, 2024).

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Applications for October 2024 intake closes on 1st August 2024 and applications for Jan 2025 intake closes on 1st October 2024.