TAAG Global and University of Bristol launch Advanced Manufacturing Observatory
TAAG Global, headquartered in London, UK, and the University of Bristol Business School, UK, have announced a strategic partnership to establish the Advanced Manufacturing Observatory, a platform intended to provide manufacturers and investors with market intelligence, commercial insights and business strategy support for the advanced manufacturing sector.
The initiative complements the University of Bristol’s recently launched M&A Observatory, creating two platforms that address both investment activity and commercial development within manufacturing. According to the partners, the Advanced Manufacturing Observatory will provide continuous industry intelligence intended to help manufacturers respond to changing market conditions and identify opportunities for growth.
“Advanced manufacturing is being reshaped by forces that are as much commercial and geopolitical as they are technological,” stated Professor Brian Squire, Dean, University of Bristol Business School. “Alongside our M&A Observatory, this partnership gives us live industrial intelligence from businesses navigating those forces right now, and the research infrastructure to turn that intelligence into something the whole sector can learn from.”
The Advanced Manufacturing Observatory will focus on business strategy, commercialisation and market trends affecting advanced manufacturing companies. Areas of interest include supply chain restructuring, changing customer purchasing behaviour, geopolitical developments and the growing influence of sustainability requirements on procurement decisions.
According to TAAG Global and the University of Bristol Business School, the partnership will combine academic research with industry expertise to deliver market data, industry engagement and commercial support. Planned activities include executive education programmes, tailored business strategies, jointly authored academic and industry publications, and an international programme of industry events.
The first event will be the inaugural TAAG Leaders Forum, scheduled to take place at the University of Bristol’s Temple Quarter campus during the fourth quarter of 2026.
TAAG Global stated that it will contribute its commercial experience in advanced manufacturing alongside proprietary business methodologies, including the Plateau Principle, Granite Principle and SEAM industrialisation framework. The company also supports technology start-ups within the Additive Manufacturing sector and organises industry events across the Gulf, Southeast Asia and East Asia.
The University of Bristol Business School will serve as the partnership’s UK academic base. As the initiative expands internationally, the partners plan to establish collaborations with academic institutions in Germany, the UAE, Malaysia, Singapore and Japan during 2027. According to the partners, these relationships are intended to support knowledge exchange between researchers and manufacturers in each region.
The partnership will also make use of the University of Bristol’s Temple Quarter Enterprise Campus, due to open in September 2026, as its principal UK venue. The Business School said the collaboration will draw on its research in advanced manufacturing, supply chain strategy, and technology and society to support the Observatory’s activities.
“The most urgent questions in advanced manufacturing are no longer technical. They are now about business model design, how to cross the chasm from technology to industrial scale, and how organisations build the resilience to grow sustainably in an environment that is shifting,” stated Professor Jennifer Johns, School Research Director, University of Bristol Business School. “This partnership is built to answer them, and to ensure those answers reach industry everywhere they are needed.”
Daniel Johns, TAAG founder, added, “Most advanced manufacturing businesses cannot build enterprise value at scale. Add to that structural problem, there are new dimensions from a new era that challenge their operating model through accelerating digitalisation, supply chains fracturing under geopolitical pressure, and sustainability obligations. I’m proud that TAAG has been invited to be the launch partner of the Advanced Manufacturing Observatory, a new type of knowledge accelerator, to provide modern, real-time industrial leadership strategy. The global TAAG Xchange programme makes sure that knowledge travels, scales and reaches the right people, in the right place at the right time.”
www.bristol.ac.uk/business-school/
