The Centre for Process Analytics and Control Technology (CPACT) is a unique multidisciplinary Centre formed in July 1997 through the Foresight Challenge initiative.

CPACT brings together chemical and process engineers, analytical chemists, control systems engineers, chemometricians, signal processing engineers, and statisticians, from academia and industry, to research solutions to generic problems in process monitoring and control.

The research in industry-shaped and provides routes to tangible scientific and technological benefits in process manufacturing.

CPACT addresses the manufacturing challenges being faced by the chemical, biochemical, pharmaceutical, food and materials processing industries through the unique synergy of end-user process manufacturers, analytical vendor companies and control systems solution providers.

CPACT was formed in July 1997 through the Foresight Challenge with an EPSRC/DTI award of £1.34M plus industrial contributions of £690,000 in cash and £1,999,000 in-kind. It involved 3 Universities and 15 member companies.

The EPSRC Peer review of CPACT Phase I rated the project as "tending to internationally leading" with particular mention of the "outstanding contributions to research output and staff output". CPACT Phase II was launched in June 2001 with EPSRC support of £1.254M plus industrial funding of £915,000 in cash and £1,642,000 in-kind from its 18 member companies. During these two phases CPACT also raised and delivered additional research grants of the order of circa £5M.