Uplifts of maximal supergravities and transitions to non-geometric vacua

We describe a new procedure to obtain consistent backgrounds that uplift vacua and deformations of various maximal gauged supergravities by taking a known solution and performing singular limits along the moduli space of the corresponding 4-dimensional theory. We then apply this procedure to the S-3 x H-2,H-2 background that provides the uplift of 4-dimensional Minkowski vacua of maximal supergravity with gauge group [SO(4) x SO(2)] ? (16). We find that the newly generated vacua are generally only locally geometric and correspond to asymmetric orbifolds, Q-flux backgrounds or combinations thereof. We also provide the uplift to eleven dimensions of all the four-parameter Cremmer-Scherk-Schwarz gaugings.