A £54m aerospace research and development facility, COMPASS, has opened at the University of Sheffield’s Advanced Manufacturing Research Centre in South Yorkshire. It is intended to help UK manufacturers produce large composite aircraft components more quickly and at greater scale, strengthening domestic aerospace capability as global demand for new aircraft rises.

Boeing is the centre’s first user and will use it for its largest global research programme, focused on automating composite-part production for future aircraft. The project is estimated to support up to 3,000 UK jobs and around £2bn a year in export opportunities; it was backed by the Aerospace Technology Institute programme, regional authorities, the University of Sheffield and the High Value Manufacturing Catapult.