Future Flight Challenge Phase 3 Opens
The latest round of UKRI’s Future Flight challenge opens for applications this month. Through this competition, £65 million is available for innovation projects that develop and demonstrate integrated aviation systems and new vehicle technologies. This funding is from the Industrial Strategy Challenge Fund.
Phase 3 aims to build on the success of the 2020 Phase 2 competition, which invested a total of £33.5 million in over 40 innovative projects. You can read about some of the successful projects on the UKRI website.
This competition has two strands:
Strand 1, demonstrating aspects of these novel air vehicles and systems
Firstly, funding is available for projects that focus on the demonstration aspects of novel classes of electric or autonomous air vehicles and systems. Total eligible costs can range from £500,000 to £15 million.
The lead organisation must:
- be a UK registered business of any size
- be or involve at least one UK registered SME
- collaborate with other UK registered businesses, academic institutions, charities, not-for-profit, public sector organisations or research and technology organisations (RTOs)
Please note that academic institutions cannot lead an application.
Strand 2, cross-cutting technologies that enable the deployment and operation of new air vehicles
Secondly, projects can focus on developing enabling technologies and cross-cutting systems that support the deployment of novel air vehicles in UK airspace. Total eligible costs must be between £500,000 and £4 million.
To lead a project, your organisation must fulfil the following criteria:
- be a UK registered business of any size
- be or involve at least one UK registered SME
- collaborate with other UK registered organisations
Academic institutions are also ineligible to lead Strand 2 applications.
Future Flight Challenge Phase 3 will open from 6th September until 3rd November 2021. For more information and to apply, please visit the respective competition pages: Strand 1 and Strand 2. Additionally, if you are looking for bid writing support and would like to arrange a free consultation, get in touch today.
Funding available to develop a digital regulatory navigation platform for health products
Through a new SBRI competition, organisations can apply for a share of £3 million to develop a digital regulatory navigation platform for health product innovators. This funding is from Innovate UK and will support proof of concept projects.
This is phase 1 of a potential 2 phase competition. A decision to proceed with phase will depend on several factors, including the outcomes from phase 1, availability of funding and assessment of a separate application. If phase 2 goes ahead, it will support extended data collection and beta testing activity with end-users.
Scope
Firstly, projects must demonstrate the principle of an intuitive digital regulatory navigation platform that enables users to understand and explore the regulatory pathways for the healthcare product they are developing. They should also provide users with information and access to UK support structures that are relevant to their commercial R&D, for example, standards, UKAS accredited test labs and Notified Bodies.
All proposals should:
- Demonstrate a credible and practical route to market
- Include a plan to commercialise your results
- Utilise externally maintained nomenclatures
- Focus on healthcare products for the UK and EU, but be scalable to other sectors and global markets in the future
Eligibility
Projects must fulfil the following eligibility criteria:
- Start by 1st November 2021 and end before 31st March 2022
- Last up to 5 months
- Have total eligible costs from £250,000 to £1 million inclusive of VAT
- Demonstrate a deep understanding and expertise of the regulation of health products within the UK and EU
- Understand challenges facing innovators or businesses seeking to bring innovative products to market
Organisations of any size can lead a project. They can work alone or with others from business, research organisations, research and technology organisations or the third sector as subcontractors.
Applications must attribute at least 50% of the contract value directly and exclusively to R&D services. For example, this may include solution exploration and design, prototyping, and field-testing the product or service.
More Information
This competition will open from 23rd August until 20th September. For more information and to apply, please visit the competition page. If you are looking for bid writing support and would like to arrange a free consultation, get in touch today.
New £375 million Future Fund: Breakthrough scheme open for applications
Future Fund: Breakthrough is open for applications. The new UK-wide scheme is encouraging private investors to co-invest with the Government in high-growth, innovative companies. It will deliver £375 million of government funding via British Patient Capital, a subsidiary of the British Business Bank.
This funding is for businesses that are looking to raise at least £30 million of investment. The Government will provide up to 30% of the required investment and the remaining 70% should come from private investors.
The scheme is targeting innovators in a range of breakthrough technology sectors, including life sciences, quantum computing and clean technology. It will enable businesses to scale up and bring their transformational technologies to market, helping secure the UK’s position as a scientific superpower.
Eligibility Criteria
To qualify for the scheme, a company must:
- Be a UK-registered business with significant UK operations i.e., at least half of the company’s employment base and half of its research employees should be based in the UK.
- Have secured at least £5 million of equity investment in previous funding rounds in the last five years.
- Be raising a minimum investment round size of £30 million.
- Be carrying out R&D activity in the UK by meeting all three of the following criteria:
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- Your R&D spending must have been i) at least 10% of your total operational cost base on average over the last 3 years or ii) at least 15% in one of the past 3 years.
- Your company must be developing defensible intellectual property in the UK, which will become the company’s main revenue source.
- You intend for at least 20% of your team to be carrying out research for at least 3 years from the date of investment, in roles that require a relevant master’s degree or higher.
How to Apply
Companies cannot apply directly for Future Fund: Breakthrough funding. Rather, applications must be made by a lead investor, who should meet the criteria listed by British Patient Capital.
Firstly, the lead investor must complete an online application form to prove that they meet the eligibility criteria. Following this, they will share an investment paper with British Patient Capital which explains why they are making the investment.
The lead investor will then need to pass reputation and customer due diligence checks, and share any legal and financial due diligence reports that they have prepared on the benefitting company.
More Information
More information is available on the British Patient Capital's website. If this isn't the right opportunity for you, and you would like to explore alternative funding options, please contact us to arrange a free consultation.
Grants available for small scale R&D to transform the UK’s Foundation Industry sector
The Transforming Foundation Industries Challenge Fund, in collaboration with Innovate UK, will invest up to £1.5 million in small-scale R&D projects. Split across two strands, the competition aims to improve the competitiveness of the UK’s Foundation Industry sector by helping it to become more environmentally sustainable.
All projects must address the resource productivity or energy performance opportunities of the sector and its supply chains. To do this, they must focus on the development of new: markets; business models; products and services manufactured by the sector; products and services created by suppliers to the sector; or processes.
Specifically, projects can focus on one or more of the following themes:
- Energy costs and optimisation
- Process measurement, optimisation and digitisation
- Waste recycling, utilisation and symbiosis
However, this is not an exhaustive list; Innovate UK will also consider other technologies or projects that fit the scope of the challenge.
Strand 1
Firstly, Strand 1 projects must:
- have total eligible costs between £25,000 and £75,000
- start on 1 February 2022 and end by 31 January 2023
- last between 3 and 12 months
- carry out all of its project work in the UK
- intend to exploit the results from or in the UK
To lead a project or work alone, your organisation must be a UK registered SME. However, the lead organisation can choose to collaborate with other businesses of any size, academic institutions, charities, not-for-profits, public sector organisations, or research and technology organisations.
Strand 2
Secondly, Strand 2 projects must:
- have total eligible costs between £75,000 and £250,000
- start on 1 February 2022 and end by 31 January 2023
- last from 3 months to 12 months
- carry out its project work in the UK
- intend to exploit the results from or in the UK
To lead a Strand 2 project, your organisation must be a UK registered business of any size and collaborate with UK registered businesses, academic institutions, research organisations, not-for-profits, or research and technology organisations. In addition, the project should include at least one micro, small or medium-sized enterprise.
ISCF Transforming Foundation Industry will open from 16th August until 29th September. For more information, please see the respective competition pages: Strand 1 and Strand 2. Alternatively, contact RedKnight as soon as possible if you would like to discuss an application with one of our advisers.
Applying for grant funding? Here’s why you should hire a professional bid writer
In the UK, there is over £10 billion allocated for research and innovation funding each year. However, applying for grant funding is complex and extremely competitive, with prospective applicants required to write a bid to enter most competitions. As a result, many businesses invest in the services of a professional bid writer to help them secure funding.
Why should I hire a professional bid writer?
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Saves your business time and resources
Grant applications take an average of 6-10 weeks to complete in-house. During this time, business owners, entrepreneurs and management teams will have to focus on developing the grant application, rather than running their business. Businesses must therefore think carefully about their internal capacity: i.e., can you afford for your team to be working on the application for an extended period of time?
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You benefit from their experience
There is no substitute for experience. A professional bid writer will have worked on hundreds of applications throughout their career. This experience will mean they know the process inside out, and exactly what it takes to develop a successful application.
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They’ll let you know if you’re barking up the wrong tree
A good bid writer will steer you away from a competition that they don’t think is right for you. For example, this may be the case if they have concerns about your eligibility or stage of development. While disappointing, this will save your business time and resources in the long run. They may even be able to recommend a competition that better suits your business.
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Increases your chances of success
Innovation funding is extremely competitive. However, a professional bid writer’s expertise and experience is likely to translate into a higher-than-average success rate. For example, RedKnight’s success rate stands at 42%. This is far above the average success rates of many popular innovation funding competitions, including the EIC Accelerator and Innovate UK Smart Grants. Read more about success rates here.
How do I decide who to hire?
As a starting point, we recommend asking the following questions:
- What is your business model?
- What is your success rate?
- Can you give me an example of a recent successful project you have supported?
- Can I have the contact details of those case studies, please?
- What is your capacity leading up to the deadline?
- What is your bid writing process?
Their answers to these questions should help you reach an informed decision. For more information, check out 'The Good, the bad and the ugly: How to select the right bid writer.'
Work with RedKnight
RedKnight supports tech-based start-ups and SMEs with innovation funding applications. Since 2015, we have secured over £10 million and achieved a success rate of 42%. If you are looking for bid writing support, we’d love to hear from you! Please contact us to arrange a free consultation.
Innovate UK Smart Grants: August 2021
Innovate UK has announced that a new round of Smart Grants will open on 26th August, with a deadline of 6th October 2021. £25 million will be available for disruptive R&D innovations that could significantly impact the UK economy.
Scope
Smart is Innovate UK’s “Open grant funding” programme. Applications can come from any area of technology and be applied to any part of the economy. This includes the creative industries, science or engineering, and the arts, design and media. Projects can overlap with the grand challenge areas, although Innovate UK is also keen to support projects in other areas.
Your proposal must demonstrate:
- A clear game-changing, innovative and/or disruptive and ambitious idea leading to new products, processes or services
- An idea that is significantly ahead of others in the field, set for rapid commercialisation
- A strong and deliverable business plan that addresses (and documents) market potential and needs
- A clear, evidence-based plan to deliver significant economic impact, return on investment (ROI) and growth through commercialisation, as soon as possible after project completion
- A team, business arrangement or working structure with the necessary skills and experience to run and complete the project successfully and on time
- Awareness of all the main risks the project will face (including contractor or equipment failure, recruitment delays, etc) with realistic management, mitigation and impact minimisation plans for each risk
- Clear, considerable potential to significantly impact the UK economy and/or productivity in a positive way
- Sound, practical financial plans and timelines that represent good value for money, which will always be a consideration in Innovate UK funding decisions.
Eligibility
Your application must include at least one SME; they can be the lead or a collaborative grant claiming partner. The project must start no later than 1st April 2022 and end no later than 31st March 2025.
Your project must also follow specific rules based on its duration:
- Projects with durations between 6 and 18 months must have total eligible project costs between £25,000 and £500,000. They can be single or collaborative projects.
- Projects with durations between 19 months and 36 months must have total eligible project costs between £25,000 and £2 million. In contrast to shorter projects, they must be collaborative.
RedKnight Consultancy has significant experience in supporting applications for Innovate UK Smart Grants. You can view one of our most recent success stories here. For our assistance in putting together a competitive proposal, please contact us today.
You may also be interested in our Innovate UK application guide - sign up for RedKnight's monthly newsletter today to receive a free copy direct to your inbox!
APC 19: funding available to develop the UK’s low carbon automotive capability
The Advanced Propulsion Centre (APC) is investing £25 million in late-stage, collaborative R&D to develop automotive technology and processes. Through APC 19, they aim to grow capability to support the UK automotive industry’s transition towards net zero.
Scope
Projects should demonstrate the development of on-vehicle technologies (including material, product and manufacturing processes) for on or off-road vehicles. They should either i) accelerate the development of technologies capable of low and zero tailpipe emissions or ii) demonstrate a significant reduction in carbon dioxide emissions leading to air quality improvements.
A number of technologies are in scope, including motors, batteries, vehicle hydrogen systems, power electronics, hybridisation, lightweight vehicle structures, and alternative propulsion systems. All proposals must align with the UK’s Green Industrial Strategy and clearly demonstrate how high-value R&D will take place in the UK because of this funding.
Eligibility
All projects must fulfil the following criteria:
- Have total eligible costs between £5 million and £40 million
- Be a minimum of 50% match funded
- Start before 1st April 2022
- Last between 18 and 42 months
- Carry out its project work in the UK
- Intend to exploit the results from or in the UK
In addition, the lead organisation must:
- Be a UK registered business of any size
- Have an active registered business base in the UK
- Be a grant recipient
- Involve at least one SME if the lead is not one
- Include in your consortia a vehicle manufacturer or tier 1 supplier who supplies parts directly to an original equipment manufacturer
- Collaborate with others - specifically, Innovate UK suggests that projects contain up to 6 project partners.
More Information
APC 19 is open from 9th August until 6th October. For more information and to apply, please visit the competition page. If you are looking for bid writing support and would like to arrange a free consultation with a member of our team, get in touch today.
Innovate UK Announces Women in Innovation Awards 2021/22
Through the Women in Innovation Awards 2021/22, 20 female entrepreneurs will receive a £50,000 grant and a bespoke package of mentoring, coaching and business support. The competition aims to fund and support a diverse portfolio of Women in Innovation Award winners:
- who will be relatable role models for women from all backgrounds
- from regions across the UK
- who are solving a range of pressing societal, environmental and economic challenges
Applications can come from any area of innovation and be applied to any part of the economy. However, applicants must be confident that their project, with the support of an award, will make a significant contribution to a pressing societal, environmental or economic challenge.
Eligibility
Projects must start on 1st April 2022 and last for one year. To be eligible for an award, you must also fulfil the following criteria:
- be a female founder, co-founder or senior decision maker within a UK registered micro or SME business which has been operating for at least 12 months by the competition closing date
- carry out your project work in the UK
- intend to exploit the results from or in the UK
- be legally and contractually able to use the funding
- attend an online interview panel during the week beginning 6 December 2021
- attend 2 bootcamps over one and a half days each on the 16 and 17 March 2022 and in September 2022.
- commit to work as a role model for up to 5 days over the duration of the award.
Background
Innovate UK launched Women in Innovation in 2016 to encourage gender diversity throughout UK innovation. At the time, just 14% of applications to Innovate UK were led by women – despite success rates between male and female applicants being largely equal! Since then, the number of women leading applications for grants to Innovate UK has increased by 70%.
More Information
The Women in Innovation Awards will open on 23rd August and close on 6th October. If you would like to learn more, register to attend KTN’s briefing event on 24th August! For application support, please contact us to arrange a free consultation.
Innovative Free Space Optical communication project secures €674,160 from Eureka Eurostars
RedKnight is pleased to announce another successful grant funding application. Free Space Optical Links for 5G networks (FrOLik) will receive €674,160 from Eureka Eurostars to develop its innovative Free Space Optical (FSO) links technology. Impressively, FrOLik ranked 16th out of all 500 eligible applications to the September 2020 call! This is a testament to the strength of the team and the project’s innovation potential.
The project comprises the following R&D-performing SMEs: Integrated Compound Semiconductor Ltd (ICS – Manchester, UK), VTEC Lasers and Sensors BV (Eindhoven, Netherlands) and Aircision BV (Eindhoven, Netherlands). The Compound Semiconductor Centre (South Wales) will also provide support.
Approach
FrOLik aims to deliver a novel FSO communication product for 5G infrastructure deployment. Currently, point-to-point fibre optic links are the standard deployment option as they provide high integrity and high bandwidth transmission. FSO is a more flexible and lower-cost alternative, but it suffers from outages in adverse weather conditions.
The project involves an innovative structured laser beam technology that enables long-range, 100 Gb/s data transmission with high link reliability. This was developed by The European Organization for Nuclear Research (CERN) and subsequently commercialised by Aircision. By leveraging the laser beam technology with unique high-performance detector technology (developed by ICS) and new high-speed component integration techniques (developed by VTEC), FrOLik hopes to deliver a radically new FSO system optimised for 5G interfacing.
It will address the trade-off between bandwidth and range backhaul with two clear advantages:
1) Firstly, the system is easily deployable and cost-effective in comparison to fibre optic links.
2) Compared to microwave links, the system is easier to upgrade, requires no spectrum licenses, and consumes less electricity.
Testimonial
Professor Wyn Meredith, Managing Director of the Compound Semiconductor Centre, said of the success,
“This project brings together highly specialist photonic component and communications system expertise at different levels in a technically challenging supply chain. RedKnight took away the burden of developing the framework and broader narrative of the proposal, to allow the consortium to focus on articulating the advantages of a collaborative approach, and the uniqueness of the proposal solution. The fact that the proposal ranked in the top 5% of all bids submitted in the call speaks for itself….”
If you are a tech-based startup or SME and would like help securing grant funding, then please contact RedKnight today.
Analysis for Innovators Returns for Round 6
A new round of Analysis for Innovators (A4I) is open for applications! UK registered businesses can apply for a share of £3 million to resolve productivity issues by working with the best UK scientists and cutting-edge research facilities.
This is the expression of interest (EoI) stage and so there is no funding available. Moving forward, successful applicants will attend brokerage consultations with A4I partners to find the best approach for solving their problem. They will then work together to propose joint projects in stage 2 which, if successful, will receive grant funding.
Eligibility
In stage two, your project must fulfil the following criteria:
- have total eligible costs of up to £50,000
- start by 1 January 2022 and end by 31st March 2022
- carry out all of its project work in the UK
- intend to exploit the results from or in the UK
- involve at least one of the A4I co-funding partner organisations
A business can only lead on one application in this round of the competition, while previously submitted applications are also ineligible.
Scope
Within your application, you must outline the benefits of solving your problem. For example, this may include improved productivity or competitiveness. Innovate UK will only consider problems that:
- are related to the measurement or analysis of some quantities or properties of an existing process, product or service
- are not effectively solvable by simple ‘off the shelf’ methods or techniques
You must outline any methods and attempts that you have previously tried to address the problem. However, your application should not propose a solution.
More Information
Analysis for Innovators is open from 29th July until 18th August. Successful applicants will be notified by 8th September, with online partner brokerage sessions set to take place between 10th - 20th September. More information is available on the competition page.
If you’re looking for funding to develop a new innovative product, process or service, rather than to solve a problem, you may be interested in Innovate UK’s Smart Grants competition.