The bulk of the cash, nearly £44m, will be used to improve battery performance for electric vehicles and wind turbines, with the hope that new technologies such as electric aeroplanes will also benefit.

The funding will also be used to complete a first-of-its-kind UK Battery Industrialisation Centre in Coventry, West Midlands, creating 100 jobs. Organisations across the automotive, rail and aerospace sectors will have access to this unique battery production facility, which will combine manufacturing, experimentation and innovation.

A further £15m will used to enable universities, research organisations and businesses to build robots to inspect, maintain and repair nuclear power stations, satellites and wind turbines.

Firms have already been looking into the use of robot arms that can directly mimic the movements of a human operator in order to manipulate radioactive material that would be unsafe for human contact.

The robotics will also be used to address new problems resulting from the pandemic, including ones that can be operated remotely and make contact-free deliveries or move hospital beds.

Finally, £6.5m will be allocated to the Advanced Therapy Treatment Centre network to accelerate patient access to advanced therapies. These cell and gene-based therapies are aimed at the treatment of life-limiting and inherited diseases such as cancer, Duchenne muscular dystrophy or cystic fibrosis.

Science Minister Amanda Solloway said the Government wanted to put the UK “at the forefront of new technologies to create high-skilled jobs, increase productivity and grow the economy as we recover from coronavirus”.

She continued: “This new funding will strengthen the UK’s global status in a range of areas, including battery technologies for electric vehicles and robotics, helping us develop innovative solutions to some of our biggest global challenges and creating jobs in rewarding careers right across the country”.

Challenge director for The Faraday Battery Challenge Tony Harper said: “In order for batteries to play their full environmental and economic role in achieving Net Zero, we need to deploy at scale and build supply chains for today’s technology, shift from strong potential to commercial dominance in a new generation of batteries and continue to build world-class scientific capability to sustain us into the future.”