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Eight hubs, £40 million, and one of them is in Lincoln

Qurexa Editorial Team10 October 20266 min read 0 0
Eight hubs, £40 million, and one of them is in Lincoln

What happened

On 9 October 2026 the government launched eight new Robotics Adoption Hubs across the UK, backed by £40 million. The announcement came from the Department for Business, Innovation, Science and Trade and the Cabinet Office, with the Minister for AI, Kanishka Narayan MP. The idea behind the hubs is less about building new robots and more about helping ordinary businesses and services actually use the ones that already exist. Each hub covers a sector or a region, and offers things like advice, demonstrations, feasibility studies and a chance to try before you invest. The eight hubs are: SHARP, the National Surgical Robotic Adoption Hub, which supports safe and evidence-based use of surgical robots. HARVEST, based in Lincoln, which tackles barriers in the agri-food sector with testbeds for arable farming, fruit, vegetables and food manufacturing. The Greater Southwest Robotic Adoption Hub, offering advice, industry links and demonstrations. The Milton Keynes Robotics Adoption Hub, a smart-city hub for service robots, drones and self-driving vehicles in public spaces. Hwb Llwybr Roboteg Cymru, helping Welsh manufacturers with guidance and finance support. The National Waste and Recycling Robotics Adoption Hub, helping sites recover more materials and send less to landfill. The Yorkshire Robotics Adoption Hub, giving manufacturers vendor-neutral support including feasibility studies and workforce training. And the South Wales Robotics Adoption Hub, offering independent advice and deployment support. Two smaller pots sit alongside the £40 million. There is £1.7 million for a body called AURA, short for Accelerating UK Robotics Adoption, which will connect the hubs and share what they learn. It is being delivered by The Welding Institute with Anglia Ruskin University. And there is £2.5 million for 12 projects on robotics training, apprenticeships and outreach.

Why this matters

The gap this money is trying to close is a real one, and the government is unusually blunt about it. The official figures quoted in the announcement come from a 2021 government estimate. Robotics and autonomous systems could add £150 billion to the UK economy by 2035 if adoption were maximised. At current adoption levels, the contribution is £6.4 billion. That is not a small shortfall. It is the difference between having the technology and using it. Mr Narayan named the reason he thinks that gap exists: "too often businesses and bosses don't know where to start". That is a problem advice and demonstrations can genuinely help with, which is what these hubs are for. Bruce Adderley, Director of Advanced Manufacturing at Innovate UK, said "Robotics has an important role to play in improving productivity" and public services. For readers in Lincolnshire, the Lincoln hub is the one to watch. HARVEST is led from the county, and agri-food is one of the things this part of England actually does at scale. Professor Simon Pearson MBE, its executive director, said: "This funding takes us to the next level on our journey to advance agri-food through cutting-edge robotic solutions."

What the evidence actually says

Two of the headline promises deserve a closer look, because the press release leads with them. The first is faster recovery after surgery. Robotic surgical assistants can make some operations less invasive, and less invasive surgery can mean a shorter stay and a quicker recovery. That is a fair general claim. But it does not hold for every operation. Earlier this year, research comparing 1.3 million joint replacements found that robot-assisted hip and knee surgery did not outperform the conventional approach on the measures studied. The evidence is operation-specific, which is precisely why a hub dedicated to safe, evidence-based adoption is a sensible thing to fund. The second is better harvests. Automated fruit-picking machines can shorten harvest times and free workers for other jobs. Again, reasonable, and directly relevant to a county like Lincolnshire. But harvest robotics has been promising a great deal for years and has proved genuinely hard to make pay on real farms with real weather. The £150 billion figure is also worth reading carefully. It is a 2021 estimate of what maximum adoption could deliver by 2035, not a forecast of what will happen. Treat it as the size of the prize, not a prediction. What is solid is the money, the locations and the structure. Eight hubs, a connecting body, and skills funding, all announced with named leads and named institutions.

Practical advice

If you run a business, this is one of the rare announcements you can act on without being a specialist. Find the hub that matches you, by sector or by region. If you are in food or farming, HARVEST in Lincoln is your first call. If you are a manufacturer in Yorkshire or Wales, there is a hub for you. If you handle waste or recycling, so is there. Ask for the unglamorous things first. Feasibility studies and test-before-invest options are far more useful than a demonstration video. The hubs exist partly so that small firms do not have to gamble on a six-figure purchase to find out whether automation suits their process. If you employ people, look at the skills projects. Twelve of them were funded, and several are free or low-cost. They include a Robotics Training Centre in Scotland, port robotics training, a learning factory in Northern Ireland, free online and hands-on training for setting up robot arms, and an apprenticeship being developed by the National Robotarium with employers. If you are a parent or a teacher, two of the funded projects go into schools. One works with students in 48 schools across Somerset, Devon and Cornwall. Another builds a robotics curriculum aligned to GCSE and A-level Computer Science, delivered through teacher training. Ask your school whether it is involved. And if you are a patient, you do not need to do anything. But it is reasonable to ask your surgeon, if robotic surgery is offered to you, what the evidence says for your specific operation.

What to know

The government has put £40 million into eight Robotics Adoption Hubs, plus £1.7 million for a body to connect them and £2.5 million for 12 skills projects. The hubs cover surgery, agri-food, waste and recycling, smart cities, and manufacturing in several regions, including Wales and Yorkshire. The point is adoption, not invention. Official figures suggest robotics contributes £6.4 billion to the UK economy now, against an estimated £150 billion possible by 2035 if take-up were maximised. For Lincolnshire, the relevant one is HARVEST in Lincoln, which focuses on arable farming, fruit and vegetables, and food manufacturing. If you run a business in that space, the hub is there to be used. Sources: Department for Business, Innovation, Science and Trade and Cabinet Office, 'Brits to benefit from faster recovery from surgeries and better harvests through new backing for robotics', 9 October 2026, https://www.gov.uk/government/news/brits-to-benefit-from-faster-recovery-from-surgeries-and-better-harvests-through-new-backing-for-robotics; Prime Minister's Office, 10 Downing Street, 'Prime Minister to hand regions innovation funding to build world-leading industries', 9 October 2026, https://www.gov.uk/government/news/prime-minister-to-hand-regions-innovation-funding-to-build-world-leading-industries; Prime Minister's Office, 'PM speech at the Innovation Nation Summit: 9 October 2026', 9 October 2026, https://www.gov.uk/government/speeches/pm-speech-at-the-innovation-nation-summit-9-october-2026 This article is for general information. Where it touches on health or medicines, it does not replace advice from a doctor, pharmacist or other qualified healthcare professional.

#robotics#innovation funding#Lincolnshire#surgery#manufacturing#skills

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