Industry Advancement Day brings UK textile professionals together to drive innovation and collaboration
02/02/2026
Last week, textile industry professionals came together for the first Industry Advancement Day, a focused, collaborative event aimed at tackling sector challenges, sharing expertise and shaping the future of UK product development, process efficiency and innovation.
The day is part of a new series responding to member feedback highlighting common challenges in innovation, production, and collaboration, alongside issues specific to individual businesses or sub-sectors. The sessions are designed to unite manufacturers, designers, technical experts, and innovators to identify root causes, explore solutions, and highlight opportunities for practical support.
The inaugural session took place at the University of Sheffield’s Advanced Manufacturing Research Centre (AMRC). Participants were welcomed with an opening presentation, toured the state-of-the-art facilities and engaged in discussions on digitalisation in textiles. The programme also included a session from Alex Begg on opportunities in new product development.
Key themes explored during the day included:
- Current approaches to digitalisation, innovation and collaboration across UK textile manufacturing
- Accelerating commercialisation and overcoming product development bottlenecks
- Aligning technical design with new product development
- Onshoring, collaboration frameworks and practical measures to strengthen the UK’s product development ecosystem
- Knowledge-sharing and open dialogue between participants
The agenda combined presentations, a tour of AMRC and roundtable discussions, allowing attendees to exchange insights and consider practical solutions that could be applied in their own operations.
The day concluded with a call to action for next steps and further collaboration, reinforcing the role of Industry Advancement Days in supporting innovation, process improvement and the overall competitiveness of UK textile manufacturing.
Adam Hankin, Co-founder and CEO at Gemell Technology, said: “Thanks again for having me, it was a great room of people you managed to organise, and I personally got a lot out of meeting people face to face and hearing the problems they’re facing. I’m a high bar to be satisfied, as I had to get up at 4am to jump on a flight, hire a car, drive an hour and a half to make it there and then do the opposite to get home by 11pm. I’d do it again in a heartbeat, so please do keep us in the loop for future get events / get togethers.”