George Osborne, the chancellor of the exchequer, announced at the Conservative Party conference today that the government was to spend ?145 million on high performance computing and improving the UK¡¯s e-infrastucture.

Another ?50 million will be spent on a ¡°graphene hub¡± to accelerate the commercial exploitation of the material, which was discovered at the University of Manchester.

Graphene is a one-atom thick form of carbon with a vast range of potential applications in and beyond electronics.

Before his speech Mr Osborne visited its discoverers, Konstantin Novoselov and Andre Geim, almost a year after the pair were awarded the 2010 Nobel Prize for physics.

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¡°[They] could have gone anywhere in the world to conduct their research, but they chose the University of Manchester,¡± Mr Osborne said in his speech.

¡°Now countries like Singapore, Korea and America are luring them with lucrative offers to move their research overseas, but they want to stay here, in Britain [because] they think it¡¯s the best country in the world for them and their work.¡±

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The Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council and the Technology Strategy Board will organise a competition for the award of the funding.

A spokesman for the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills said the winning bid would probably consist of a ¡°hub and spoke¡± arrangement with a university as its hub.

The funding for e-infrastructure has been earmarked for a variety of projects, such as software development, data storage and cyber security.

The funding will be focused on the Daresbury Science and Innovation Campus in Cheshire.

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A BIS spokeswoman was unable to confirm whether any of the spending would be in ÖйúAƬ institutions, but David Willetts, the universities and science minister, said that as well as being a boost to business, the investment would also be of ¡°enormous benefit¡± to the research base by enabling universities to ¡°carry out highly sophisticated research and archive more data¡±.

Imran Khan, director of the Campaign for Science and Engineering, welcomed the spending, coming on the heels of Mr Osborne¡¯s announcement of an extra ?100 million in science capital spending in this year¡¯s Budget.

But he reiterated that the announcements came in the wake of ¡°enormous cuts¡± to the UK research base, which would see UK research and development funding decrease by ?1.7 billion by 2014-15.

He added that he understood the money would be found from under-spends on capital projects across government, but was unclear whether its allocation had been made ¡°fully in concert¡± with the research councils.

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¡°We need an explicit long-term strategy to put science and engineering at the heart of the UK¡¯s economic recovery.

¡°If we don¡¯t see that, home-growth discoveries like graphene could be a thing of the past.

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¡°Hopefully, the chancellor¡¯s important announcements today can help form the foundations of just such a strategy,¡± he said.

paul.jump@tsleducation.com