The Higher Education Funding Council for England (HEFCE), the government body that finances universities, established and funded in 2005 a number of Centres of Excellence in Teaching and Learning. Only one Physics-based CETL was established. This is piCETL, the Physics Innovations Centre of Excellence in Teaching and Learning, which involves jointly the University of Reading, the Open University, and Leicester University, awarded in recognition of the long-established record of excellence in physics teaching in these institutions. The University of Reading has on its staff two winners of the Bragg Physics Medal and a previous holder of a National Teaching Fellowship (the first awarded in Physics). piCETL enables Reading to maintain its position at the cutting edge of University physics education and to introduce new and exciting developments to improve the learning experiences of physics undergraduates at Reading and elsewhere.

The University of Reading's main contribution to piCETL lies in the development of the Virtual Laboratory that aims to augment the teaching and learning functions of a conventional physics hands-on laboratory by offering new opportunities to the students in which they may carry out and experience experiments remotely via a PC.