UK encapsulation technology SME applying particle and capsule production expertise across self-healing concrete and bioactive health delivery systems.
Micropore Technologies is a UK-based industrial SME whose project portfolio centres on encapsulation systems applied across two distinct sectors: advanced construction materials and bioactive delivery for human health. In SMARTINCS, they contributed industrial manufacturing expertise to a five-year research programme on self-healing, multifunctional repair technologies in cementitious concrete systems. In ENCAP4HEALTH, they applied encapsulation know-how to the design of sustainable delivery systems for plant proteins, biopolymers, and health-promoting bioactives. As an SME participant in MSCA researcher exchange and training networks, they serve as an industrial anchor — providing real-world process and production context to academic-led consortia.
Both SMARTINCS (self-healing agent capsules in concrete) and ENCAP4HEALTH (bioactive encapsulation for health) depend on encapsulation as a shared core capability, pointing to this as the company's unifying technology platform.
SMARTINCS (2019–2024) focused explicitly on self-healing, multifunctional repair technologies in concrete systems, including service life extension and sustainable infrastructure.
ENCAP4HEALTH (2020–2024) targeted sustainable encapsulation of bioactives, biopolymers, and plant proteins to improve human health outcomes via smart processing and digestion-aware delivery.
Their first H2020 engagement (2019) placed them squarely in construction and civil infrastructure — self-healing concrete, durable cementitious systems, and smart service-life extension. Within a year, their second project pivoted entirely toward food science and life sciences: encapsulation of plant proteins, bioactives, and biopolymers for human health. This rapid cross-sector shift strongly suggests they hold a platform encapsulation technology that is application-agnostic, and they are actively testing it in new markets beyond construction.
They are expanding their encapsulation platform from civil engineering into food science and nutraceuticals, indicating a strategic move toward life-science markets where encapsulation has larger commercial upside.
Micropore Technologies participates exclusively as a consortium partner — never as coordinator — which is the typical posture for industrial SMEs in MSCA schemes contributing specific process expertise rather than project management capacity. Despite only two projects, they have worked with 21 unique partners across 11 countries, showing they are comfortable inside large, internationally distributed consortia. This pattern suggests they are sought out for the industrial manufacturing knowledge they bring, not for administrative leadership.
Across just two projects, Micropore Technologies engaged 21 unique partners spanning 11 countries — an unusually wide network footprint for a two-project SME, reflecting the large multi-institutional scale of MSCA-ITN and MSCA-RISE consortia they joined.
Micropore Technologies occupies a rare position as an industrial SME whose encapsulation technology has been validated in two entirely different research domains — construction materials and health delivery — within consecutive project years. This cross-sector applicability is difficult for university groups or sector-specialist firms to replicate, and makes them a credible partner for any consortium needing industrial microencapsulation or particle-production know-how. Their continued participation in EU research networks post-Brexit also signals an active commitment to European scientific collaboration that many UK SMEs have stepped back from.
