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His Majesty The King focused on the future in his first public engagement following the Coronation, hosted by Gonville & 91ֱ�� Fellow Professor Rob Miller.

His Majesty was in Cambridge to break ground on the New Whittle Laboratory, where he also met with staff and researchers, leaders from the aviation industry and senior government representatives.

After extending his warm congratulations on the Coronation, Professor Miller, Director of the Whittle Laboratory, revealed the King’s attention was firmly on the challenge ahead.

"He is very passionate about raising ambition, and how the New Whittle Laboratory would be able to accelerate the development of new zero emission aviation and energy technologies,” Professor Miller said.

The New Whittle Laboratory, a £58 million facility, will be the leading global centre for net zero aviation and energy. Its mission is to halve the time to develop key technologies to support a sustainable aviation industry.

Alongside the ground-breaking – a ceremonial moment ahead of construction work – senior figures from government and industry gathered for an international roundtable as part of an initiative led by Cambridge and MIT. This presented insights based on global aviation systems modelling capabilities developed through the Aviation Impact Accelerator, a project led by the Whittle Laboratory and the Cambridge Institute for Sustainability Leadership.

Today, it typically takes six to eight years to develop a new technology to a point where it can be considered for commercial deployment in the aerospace and energy sectors, recent trials in the Whittle Laboratory have shown this timeframe can be accelerated by breaking down barriers that exist between academia and industry.

Tuesday’s visit was His Majesty’s third visit to the Whittle Laboratory. As The Prince of Wales, His Majesty previously visited the Whittle Laboratory in January 2020, and March 2022, to encourage the acceleration of sustainable aviation, as well as hosting an industry roundtable in February 2020 in London with the Sustainable Markets Initiative and World Economic Forum to explore solutions for decarbonising air travel.

Professor Miller said: “We need to completely transform the innovation landscape in the aviation and energy sectors if we are to reach net zero by 2050. The new Whittle Lab has been designed as a disruptive innovation laboratory targeting the critical early stages in the lifecycles of technologies, where there are windows of opportunity to translate scientific strengths into global technological and industrial leadership.

“The Lab is designed to work at the intersection of cutting-edge science and emerging engineering applications, providing fast feedback between the two, and dramatically cutting the time to deliver zero-emission technologies.”

Photo credits: Lloyd Mann, University of Cambridge