IDRIC awarded Research Institute of the Year for driving net zero innovation

The UK Industrial Decarbonisation Research and Innovation Centre (IDRIC), headquartered at Heriot-Watt University, has been named "Research Institute of the Year" at the prestigious 2025 Edie Net Zero Awards in London. This recognition highlights IDRIC's leadership and significant contributions toward accelerating the sustainable energy transition of industry whilst boosting competitiveness and productivity. The Edie Net Zero Awards recognise the most innovative and impactful sustainability projects, teams and individuals in the UK and beyond.

IDRIC is the UK flagship research and innovation centre, pioneering a whole-systems, place-based approach to realise green industrial futures. Over the past five years, it has worked with academic institutions, industry, community representatives, and policymakers to address innovation needs and integrate knowledge across various disciplines and sectors.

This year marks the first time the Edie Net Zero Awards have included a category for Research Institute of the Year, and IDRIC faced strong competition from leading academic institutions across the UK, including the TPI Centre at the London School of Economics and the Smith School of Enterprise and the Environment at the University of Oxford.

The award recognises the collective efforts of IDRIC’s community of researchers and supporting team, as well as its industry and policy partners, who have all worked together tirelessly to accelerate industrial decarbonisation and to build sustainable industries at pace and scale.

Over the past five years, IDRIC has unified national capabilities and integrated efforts across the entire research and innovation ecosystem. During this time, the institute has delivered more than 230 project outputs from 100 research projects, along with over 60 prototypes, tools, and models.

Key to its success has been building strong relationships with more than 12 UK industrial clusters and over 45 research institutions. It has also made over 40 policy recommendations to the UK Parliament, supported by numerous influential convening policy events.

In addition to this work, IDRIC has collaborated with skills organisations across the UK and enhanced skills and workforce diversity through secondments and training. It has also launched the EPSRC CDT in Green Industrial Futures, training 100 future leaders for the green industrial transition.

More recently, IDRIC has published a Frontiers Report Series for policy makers and industry which translates academic insights into practical, evidence-based recommendations for our stakeholders. IDRIC has launched the Net Zero Industry Visualisation Tool for the wider public – an interactive tool that allows users to explore what a green industrial future looks like and guides school leavers toward potential training routes for a career in decarbonisation. The institute is finalising its  forthcoming Research and Innovation Agenda, scheduled for publication in early 2026, which will outline the key priorities for advancing industry transformation towards achieving net zero.

Professor Mercedes Maroto-Valer, IDRIC’s Director, commented: "Being named the Research Institute of the Year, is testament to the fact that ambition, commitment and collaboration can have a real impact on the sustainable journey of our industrial heartlands to net zero. We are very honoured to receive this fantastic award among very strong competitors and remain more committed than ever to translating rigorous research into real-world impact."

IDRIC would like to extend sincere thanks to all its partners, collaborators, and funders as it collectively drive progress towards the sustainable industries of the future and make meaningful progress toward a sustainable net zero future.