ForrestBrown to participate in Greater Southwest Robotic Adoption Hub   

The South West, home to ForrestBrown’s Bristol headquarters, has long been synonymous with innovation. Host to major global brands including Dyson, Airbus and Rolls Royce, it has cultivated an impressive reputation for pushing scientific and technological boundaries in sectors including aerospace, defence and manufacturing.  

With robotics playing a vital role in the region’s pioneering work, it’s welcome news that the government has allocated £40 million to the creation of eight new robotics hubs across the country, including the South West.  

Each will have a different focus, with the Lincolnshire-based hub, HARVEST, tackling barriers to robotics across the agri-food sector, while the National Surgical Robotic Adoption Hub will accelerate safe, effective adoption of surgical robotics.  

The Greater Southwest Robotic Adoption Hub (GSWRAH) 

The South West body, The Greater Southwest Robotic Adoption Hub (GSWRAH), has been awarded £9.8 million, almost a quarter of the available funding. It will be led by the Bristol Robotics Laboratory (BRL), in a partnership between the University of Bristol and the University of the West of England (UWE), in collaboration with The National Composites Centre (NCC). 

GSWRAH will operate as a consortium of 23 partners from industry, academia, and local government, which includes NatWest Bank, Dyson Institute of Engineering and Technology, Bureau Veritas UK and Loop Technology, as well as ForrestBrown. 

Designed to help support and accelerate the adoption of robotics in the South West, it will focus on three key areas: 

• Advice: support for businesses exploring robotics adoption. 
• Showcase programme: site visits and demonstrations showcasing real-world robotics application. 
• Ecosystem programme: events, networking, and knowledge-sharing activities. 

ForrestBrown’s participation in GSWRAH  

Acting as a non-funded partner, ForrestBrown will leverage its experience in supporting manufacturing and robotics innovation to help businesses with their funding and growth strategies. It will also provide an events and networking space to support the ecosystem programme. 

Commenting on the launch, Elliott Parsons, Business Development Manager at ForrestBrown, said: 

“The South West has all the foundational elements for success – talent, ideas, pioneering research institutes and a strong robotics ecosystem. The launch of the Greater Southwest Robotic Adoption Hub marks another milestone in accelerating that progress and delivering real-world impact. 

As a specialist R&D and innovation incentives adviser, we’re ideally placed to draw on our sector expertise to support innovative South West companies, particularly those in their early stages, with robotics development. This is when whole life cycle funding strategies need to be put in place to transform initial investments into long-term commercial gain.”