Chancellor George Osborne (left) announced the research funding during his speech to the Conservative party conference in Manchester. It will help turn the substance into a money-spinner that promises to boost the local economy and provide jobs.

The Chancellor plans for a £50m global research & technology hub which local leaders, who have been in talks with the Treasury to secure the investment, are 'very hopeful' will be  in Manchester. The centre would help develop the technology to allow the manufacture of graphene on a large scale.

Mike Emmerich,CEO of Manchester's Commission for the New Economy, has been working to secure the investment. "A year ago our city became the home of a Nobel prize. Today's announcement marks the start of the next phase of investment turning graphene into jobs and growth.

"I'm delighted that my team in New Economy have played a key roles in getting to this point and look forward to working with the university and business in the period ahead."

But in 2006, realising graphene’s potential as one of the strongest, most thermally and 
electrically conductive materials known - Vorbeck Materials was started in Maryland USA and is making the material a reality with Vor-x graphene formulations 
and composites. Company advisor & director (left) is Professor Ilhan Aksay, Professor in the Department of Chemical Engineering at Princeton University

(Right) Current new material crumpled graphene in conductive inks made by  Vorbeck Materials. Atomic-force microscope image is coloured to show topography of a piece of graphene of the type used in the inks; red areas are higher and blue are lower. 
Courtesy: Ilhan Aksay and Hannes Schniepp.

Also emerging a year later,  in March 2007 was Manchester based Graphene Industries, a spin-out company incorporated in March 2007 to capitalise on the advances made by Professor Andre Geim's research group at Manchester University.

It is headed by Peter Blake (left) a postdoctoral researcher in the Condensed Matter Physics Group at the University of Manchester. Since 2004, he has been studying optical & electronic properties of graphene and developing related micro-fabrication procedures.

Current exploration is the potential uses of graphene for transparent conductive coating and membrane applications with graphene and a boron nitride hybrid structure.

Graphene Industries claims to be first commercial graphen supplier in the quantities and formats required for micro- and nanoelectronic fabrication and research. 

Although none of the Manchester academic staff is involved in the company,  benefits of sharing the same locality and interaction ensures that Graphene Industries ia aware of latest graphene developments, so customers receive samples of the same quality as the Manchester group, which is second to none.

But if the UK is to keep ahead on the commercialisation of graphene, it deperately needs a start up companies and cluster activity to generate graphene synergy, something that the USA and China are probably already developing in their own localities.