The Fabric of Society
As the University of Leeds is awarded one of the UK’s most prestigious educational honours for its 150 years of textile research, we delve into the history and explore the innovation driving the next chapter.
The textile industry has been at the heart of the city of Leeds and its surrounding area for centuries. From the emergence of wool merchants and cloth halls to pioneering scientific breakthroughs, the region has a proud legacy of textile innovation.
The University of Leeds plays a pivotal role in supporting the city and its textile manufacturers by developing technology and nurturing the industry’s future leaders.
The impact of Leeds’ research has now been recognised with one of the highest honours bestowed on UK universities and colleges.
The prestigious Queen Elizabeth Prize for Higher and Further Education – part of the UK national Honours system – recognises Leeds’ 150 years of outstanding textile research.
The biennial prize was known during the late monarch’s lifetime as the Queen’s Anniversary Prize.
The University was also recognised in 2021 for research into tropical weather systems and climate science.
Prior to this, awards were received by the Institute for Transport Studies and Institute for Medical and Biological Engineering.
Professor Shearer West, Vice-Chancellor and President of the University of Leeds, said:
We are proud of the University’s extensive textiles heritage and our long-standing contribution to one of the region’s key industrial sectors.
“This prestigious prize, awarded at the highest level of state, recognises not just those talented teams innovating in this broad-ranging discipline today, but our institution as a whole.
“Our researchers are addressing a vast range of global challenges in areas including sustainability, healthtech and performance textiles. I am looking forward to seeing how the next phase of collaboration and innovation unfolds.”
In this Spotlight article, we explore how textiles have underpinned our regional economy for centuries.
We also examine the present day and future impact of University of Leeds research, the crucial role of The Clothworkers’ Company and the interdisciplinary expertise of Leeds Institute of Textiles and Colour (LITAC) in tackling global challenges.
A proud heritage
From the 12th century, local monks kept sheep, selling wool and fabrics. The trade in cloth grew to underpin Leeds’ prosperity, long before the industrial revolution saw the development of large-scale flax and wool textile manufacturing mills.
By the mid-19th century, the industry employed two-fifths of the local population.
Local industrialists, keen to harness emerging technologies and develop skilled workers for their mills, were critical in establishing the Yorkshire College of Science, one of the institutions which would go on to form the University of Leeds, alongside the Leeds School of Medicine.
The project may have foundered altogether had Obadiah Nussey, an industrialist and former Mayor of Leeds, not secured the support of The Clothworkers’ Company – one of London’s ancient livery companies.
The Clothworkers’ gift to establish the Departments of Textile Industries and of Tinctorial Chemistry and Dyeing underpinned the new college, which opened in 1874.
These departments became founding academic disciplines when the college gained its university charter in 1904. In the years that followed, they were transformed from centres for technical education to applied science departments of high academic achievement and international renown.
Decades of interdisciplinary research saw numerous scientific advances flow from the University’s research – early man-made fibres based on renewable resources, a deeper understanding of the structure and mechanics of textiles and the development of synthetic dyes.
The Astbury Story
In the 1920s and 30s, William Astbury, a lecturer in Textile Physics, used keratin and collagen fibres to apply the technique of x-ray crystallography – first developed in Leeds by his mentor, the Nobel Prize winner William Henry Bragg and his son Lawrence for the study of fibrous biological molecules.
Bragg encouraged Astbury to take up the lectureship in Textile Physics, funded by The Clothworkers’ Company, in 1928.
Astbury’s research showed that proteins were long chemical chains with properties determined by the shapes they adopted.
He put this observation to novel use by showing that proteins found in seeds and nuts could be refolded into insoluble fibres, creating a cheap and abundant raw material. This work laid the foundations for the emerging field of molecular biology.
In 1938, physicist Florence Bell, working in Astbury’s laboratory on the analysis of wool keratin and collagen, took the very first hazy x-ray diffraction pictures of DNA. This revealed that DNA had a regular, ordered structure that could be studied using x-ray crystallography.
Florence Bell
Florence Bell
This insight gave James Watson and Francis Crick a crucial measurement – the distance between adjacent bases – when they began building their own model of DNA.
The role of Photo 51
The insight also laid the foundations for subsequent work by Maurice Wilkins, Rosalind Franklin and Raymond Gosling. One of these was Photo 51 – an x-ray image of DNA taken by Franklin and Gosling in 1952.
On its own, Photo 51 was not enough to allow Watson and Crick to solve the structure of DNA – but it did give them an important clue that the molecule was coiled into a helix.
Little did they know that an identical image had been taken a year earlier by Elwyn Beighton in Astbury’s lab at Leeds, who had continued Bell’s work after her departure.
Dr Kersten Hall, Visiting Fellow at the Centre for History and Philosophy of Science at the University of Leeds, said:
Astbury’s story reminds us that science thrives when boundaries between academic disciplines blur. What began as textile research became the springboard for molecular biology – proof that working across disciplines can lead to discoveries that change the world.
The Clothworkers’ Company
From Bragg, to Astbury, to Bell – Leeds has always been at the forefront of groundbreaking interdisciplinary research generated in collaboration with the University’s industry partners.
Through its continuing support of the University, notably through LITAC, student scholarships and the Clothworkers’ Centre for Textile Materials Innovation for Healthcare (CCTMIH), The Clothworkers’ Company has helped establish Leeds as an international centre of research excellence.
The Hon Mary Ann Slim, Master of The Clothworkers’ Company, said:
Today’s University of Leeds emerged from small beginnings in textiles, in a region throbbing with textile mills.
In the late-19th century, The Clothworkers’ Company helped enable those early steps, fostering innovation, then as now.
“With the stark reality of climate change and acute economic pressures on the textile industry, the coming into being of the Leeds Institute of Textiles and Colour (LITAC) was a timely and essential development.
“In four short years, LITAC has forged a highly effective, collaborative, industry-facing engine of opportunity for exciting and relevant innovation. The technologies that emerge have the potential to be transformative and will have sustainability at their core.
“The Clothworkers’ Company is proud to have supported LITAC in 2021, with the largest grant in our near 500 year history – a landmark in an ongoing partnership of over 150 years. We are delighted for the University at this further, exciting achievement.”
Solving problems, driving sustainability
Researchers at the University of Leeds are weaving new links with textile manufacturers to drive positive environmental change.
Textile materials play an important role not just in clothing and household products, but in areas as diverse as wind turbine composites, filtration, healthcare and high-performance textiles such as personal protective equipment (PPE).
In 2018, a £6.1m grant from the Arts and Humanities Research Council (AHRC) established Future Fashion Factory (FFF) to support sustainable change across the sector.
Comprising a consortia of the University of Leeds, the University of Huddersfield, the Royal College of Art and Manchester Metropolitan University, the collaborative research and innovation programme includes a network of 600 industrial partners and established a wider group of 2,000 – who remain integral to the work of LITAC.
FFF leveraged further multi-million pound investment for industry-led projects from business partners. This industry collaboration has been pivotal to much of the University’s research, from FFF-awarded collaborative R&D projects to ongoing research.
Researchers worked with environmental charity Hubbub and international clothing retailer Primark in one of the largest studies of its kind to determine the relationship between price and durability.
This was part of a wider project to raise awareness of the importance of durability and to provide new evidence to drive improvements in durability across the industry.
Researchers have also worked with textile science start-up company Amphico to refine fibres and explore ways of optimising their novel manufacturing process, designed to lead the textile industry to a more toxic-free and circular future. This work with Future Fashion Factory laid the groundwork for a new prototype of the company’s three-layer Water Breathable Textiles (WBT) AmphitexTM, which is the foundation of its textiles, developed for outdoor clothing brands.
With Hylo Athletics, researchers looked at recycling used footwear back into new products, supporting the development of circular manufacturing.
Hear more about the challenges the fashion industry’s contribution to pollution and climate change in our How to fix podcast episode that asks How do we make fashion fair?
Developing innovative alternatives
Fragmented fibres, including microplastics, are a pressing issue in the fight against environmental pollution. Particles released from textiles during manufacturing, use and service can range from a few thousand to millions. These find their way into rivers, oceans and the water supply, affecting ecosystems and taking hundreds of years to degrade.
Researchers are now working with industry partners to gauge the impact of existing products and develop innovative alternatives.
An Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council (EPSRC) grant allowed a research team led by Interim Head of School of Design, Professor Muhammad Tausif, to work collaboratively with academic and industry partners including GAP Inc.
Alma Palacios-Marín, a third-year postgraduate researcher who worked on the EPSRC project, said:
The point of research is to help and improve what we do as humans.
One of the things that I really like about Leeds is seeing the research we do being applied and having real impact. It’s amazing seeing researchers and the industry working together to find answers to the problems facing the world.
In 2025, an interdisciplinary team at University of Leeds spin-out company SwitchDye unlocked a way to use carbonated water to make large savings in chemical intensity, water pollution and energy during polyester dyeing.
Dr Nathanial Crompton, Chief Executive Officer, said:
SwitchDye could transform the textile industry by reducing its huge water use footprint and its pollution problem.
Industry collaboration also gives students hands-on exposure and contacts. This experience, along with new courses such as the Textile Innovation and Sustainability BSc, will maintain an impressive pedigree of application-led education that supports University of Leeds students in becoming industry leaders.
Professor Tausif said: “The textile and fashion sector highlighted a skills gap around innovation and sustainability. We are responding to these needs, and training students and professionals with the technical expertise to answer the industry’s environmental and societal challenges – and creating future leaders of the industry.”
The healing power of textiles
University of Leeds researchers are bringing together the expertise of textile, medical and dentistry specialists to find more effective ways of healing wounds without relying on antibiotics.
Wound care costs the NHS an estimated £8.3bn per year and takes up 50% of community nurse time, according to the NHS Benchmarking Network.
Leeds spin-out Hyfacol aims to tackle this challenge by manufacturing dressings from medical-grade collagen to heal problem wounds, such as surgical incisions that have reopened, diabetic ulcers and pressure ulcers.
Collagen products are already used to guide the regeneration of bone defects in a patient’s mouth, or to encourage new tissue to grow in chronic wounds that can’t heal on their own. But the current generation is problematic, as the collagen products can swell up uncontrollably, or break down too quickly.
Hyfacol’s innovative collagen dressing accelerates wound healing, achieving complete wound closure within 20 days in a preclinical study in animals. This effect was confirmed in a recent first-in-human clinical trial involving patients with diabetic or pressure ulcers. These trial results, which surpassed expectations, will underpin an upcoming publication.
Co-founder of the spinout is Giuseppe Tronci, Professor in Healthcare Materials at the Clothworkers’ Centre for Textile Materials Innovation for Healthcare (CCTMIH) within LITAC and the School of Dentistry at Leeds.
Professor Tronci explained:
The collagen in our biological tissues plays a major role in wound healing. Its molecular structure is highly cross-linked, which gives it unique mechanical properties.
“But, when we extract collagen to create healing aids, this crosslinked architecture is disrupted, yielding a material that swells unpredictably and is difficult to process.
“At Hyfacol, we have chemically modified the collagen molecules to achieve a crosslinked collagen network following exposure to light. This molecular network makes the ultimate dressing or membrane material to help wounds grow new tissues.
“The unique ecosystem at Leeds allows us to integrate this molecular design approach with advanced textile manufacturing and clinical insight. Working at this interface, we create individual collagen fibres and develop prototypes tailored to specific clinical applications.”
A microscopic image of collagen fibre.
A microscopic image of collagen fibre.
This project has reached the clinical trial stage thanks to a partnership between Leeds’ Schools of Dentistry and Design, and significant investment from the Clothworkers’ Company, the Medical Research Council and private investors.
The research team hopes to progress new ideas in the future, which could see wound dressings that include light-activated medications, so antibiotics can be provided at the right moment for optimal healing.
An impact beyond academia
Professor Stephen Russell, Director of the Leeds Institute of Textiles and Colour and the CCTMIH, said:
The Queen Elizabeth Prize for Higher and Further Education has recognised textiles as a key area of research and innovation at the University of Leeds.
With our large global alumni network, creative education programmes and research partnerships with some of the world’s most well-known retailers and textile companies, the University’s impact extends far beyond academia.
“Thanks to its wide-ranging research expertise and strong culture of collaboration, Leeds is exceptionally well-positioned to address key challenges in the textile industry and to drive innovative advances in colour and polymer science with applications across multiple sectors.”
After 150 years of innovation, the University’s textile expertise is still at the forefront of research. This expertise is filtered out into the industry, not only through partnerships but through the Professional Academy for Creative Enterprise (PACE), which provides continuing professional development (CPD) programmes on topics from sustainability to colour design.
This includes development of The Sustainable Fashion School (SFS), an accredited online course for multi-national clothing company Inditex, providing learners with the knowledge and insight to make informed decisions and in the creation of sustainable textile products.
As the next generation of researchers harness technology to tackle global challenges such as healthcare and sustainability, the legacy of clothworking heritage at Leeds is woven into the fabric of the University.
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