Vince Cable welcomes £20 million overseas investment in Oxford

Element Six, a global leader in synthetic diamond supermaterials, today (8 May) announced that the company will invest £20 million constructing the world’s largest and most sophisticated synthetic supermaterials research and development facility in Harwell, Oxford.

Once complete in Spring 2013, the new state-of-the-art innovation centre will create around 50 new science jobs, with the vast majority of positions available for highly qualified graduate scientists, engineers and physicists. It will also reinforce Element Six’s position as a world-leader in synthetic diamond research and consolidate Element Six’s global R&D teams into one integrated centre.

UK Trade & Investment supported Element Six by proposing and advising on potential locations, organising site visits, facilitating meetings with site owners and developers, preparing bespoke research and bringing in the expertise in the councils, Local Enterprise Partnerships, academic institutions and research partners.

The Rt Hon Dr Vince Cable MP, Secretary of State for Business, Innovation and Skills, said:

“The investment by Element Six, that will bring a world class research and development facility to Harwell, shows that the UK is a great place for innovative and cutting edge industries to invest. Along with a real boost to the local economy, providing around 50 new highly skilled engineering jobs, the investment shows that the Oxford region is a world leading location for hi-tech research, and that the UK is open for business.”

Cyrus Jilla, Element Six CEO commented:

“I am proud we selected the UK as the best location globally for our Innovation Centre. I am positive it will deliver higher performance products for our customers, disruptive technologies for new applications and markets, inspire and spur new related businesses in the UK, and provide an extremely rewarding environment for our scientists who are at the forefront of their field.”

Element Six was recently awarded a prestigious Queen’s Award for Enterprise in Innovation in the UK for the synthetic diamond speaker dome used in the Bowers & Wilkins 800 Diamond Series loudspeakers.

Other innovative uses of Element Six synthetic diamond include optics to enable the highest power levels achievable in CO2 lasers for automotive engineering, as semiconductors in the Large Hadron Collider, as detectors in medical radiotherapy, as cutters for the fastest rates of penetration in oil and gas drilling, and to enable picks used during road re-surfacing and repair to last up to 40 times longer than standard road picks.

Notes to editors

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Inward Investment key facts

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About Element Six

Element Six (www.e6.com) is an independently managed synthetic diamond supermaterials company. Element Six is part of the De Beers Family of Companies and is co-owned by Umicore, the Belgian materials group. Element Six is a global leader in the design, development and production of synthetic diamond supermaterials, and operates worldwide with its head office registered in Luxembourg, and primary manufacturing facilities in China, Germany, Ireland, Sweden, South Africa and the UK. Element Six supermaterial solutions are used in applications such as cutting, grinding, drilling, shearing and polishing, while the extreme properties of synthetic diamond beyond hardness are already opening up new applications in a wide array of industries such as optics, power transmission, water treatment, semi-conductors and sensors.

About Harwell Oxford

Harwell Oxford has a 60 year history of excellence in science and technology and is today being developed into a world-leading hub for technology transfer and innovative businesses as part of a joint venture by global property group Goodman, The United Kingdom Atomic Energy Authority and The Science and Facilities Technology Council.

Please visit: www.harwelloxford.com

Media contact

For more information from UK Trade & Investment, please contact Benno Hilton on 020 7215 4218 or e-mail benno.hilton@ukti.gsi.gov.uk.

For more information from Element Six, please contact Iain Hutchison on 020 8742 4949 or email Iain.hutchison@e6.com

www.ukti.gov.uk