The first round of funding is due to be awarded this autumn. At first the process will only be open to Mace employees and projects – but by 2023 the group expects be inviting supply chain partners to bid for funding.

Under its newly published Innovation strategy, Mace has committed to invest more than 2.5% of its annual revenue each year into new products, technology and processes.

A proportion of this spend will now be placed into the new Ambition Fund and used to encourage new investment in innovation that benefits the entire group.

Mark Reynolds, Mace chairman and chief executive, said: “Over the past five years, we’ve invested more than £300m in research and development across Mace, and our 2026 targets include a minimum 2.5% annual investment of our revenue each year.

“While our corporate strategy has driven industry leading change, many of the major innovations have been delivered on our projects for our clients by talented Mace colleagues who had a bright idea.

“Our Ambition Fund is a bold new way of utilising research and development funding to drive that spark further and empower Mace people – and eventually our supply chain partners – to find a better way to deliver for our clients.”

Recent major innovation investments at Mace include the development of low carbon cassettes, which can reduce the embodied carbon of a standard office structure by up to 75%, a new approach to production control rooms that improved on-site productivity by 20%, and a 30% faster delivery of high-rise buildings via our Mace Tech business.

In 2018 it was awarded the inaugural the Sir Michael Latham Award for its investment in the ‘jump factories’, used to delivery Victory Plaza in Stratford, East London.