RedKnight Masterclass goes to Berlin
Berlin hosted the first leg of a whole new season of training which we forecast being even more successful than the last one! On 28th and 29th January 2019, RedKnight Director Dayne Hodgson travelled to the German capital city to deliver the company’s first Research and Innovation Proposal Development Masterclass of the year.
The two day training event, facilitated by European Academy, was attended by delegates from Finland and Lithuania and, as always, it made for a very interesting session.
Following his return to RedKnight HQ, Dayne said, “It was a fantastic couple of days discussing how our attendees can use our expertise and knowledge to enhance their own Horizon 2020 proposals. The group were very engaging, which prompted some fascinating discussions on the current R&D landscape across Europe”.
Innovate Uk tackles productivity problems in industry with a £4m competition
Next 25 February 2019, Innovate UK will launch a 2-phase competition to help National business solving business productivity problems and improving UK industry competitiveness.
Thanks to a partnership between Innovate UK, the National Physical Laboratory, the National Measurement Laboratory at LGC, the National Engineering Laboratory and the Science and Technology Facilities Council, up to £4 million will be made available to work with leading scientists and research facilities to explore why a certain percentage defect rate is occurring within an existing production process.
In the first stage of the competition, which will close at midday on 20 March 2019, UK-based organisations of any size should connect with potential partners to agree on an approach to a problem and work together to develop an expression of interest, that shall address:
• the measurement or analysis of some quantities or properties of an existing process, product or service
• Innovative solutions to problems that are not solvable by simple ‘off the shelf’ methods or techniques
Upon successful completion of Phase 1, eligible candidates will have access to Phase 2 (opening date and deadlines TBC), which will offer grant funding to total eligible project costs up to £300,000.
Source: InnovateUK
If you wish to find out whether your business can be eligible or even if you just would like to find out more, please do not hesitate to contact us at info@redknightconsultancy.co.uk
£6m up for grabs to save the Ocean
UK businesses can have a chance to save our oceans thanks to £6m available through simultaneous grants and private investment.
The amount, made available by a public-private partnership between Innovate UK and Sky Ocean Ventures, will allow UK firms to become leaders in providing solutions to reduce pollution in world's oceans; a problem that is threatening to triple its magnitude by 2025, unless serious actions are taken (source: UN).
To enable the UK to lead the fight against waste, catalyse new ideas and quickly get products and services to market, Innovate UK will devolve 50% of the whole sum in grants, whereas the remaining 50% will be funded by Sky Ocean Venture through private investment. Part of this is from the Plastics Research and Innovation Fund – a £20 million programme led by UK Research and Innovation.
The competition to get access to this funding is now open and applicants are invited to submit their projects until midday on 13 March 2019 (first deadline). Micro and small businesses are eligible to apply, working alone, and they can get up to 100% of their project costs (expected between £100,000 and £200,000), equally split between Innovate UK and Sky Ocean Ventures.
Successful application should:
- Be feasibility studies, industrial research or experimental development
- Last no more than 12 months
- Based in the UK and the work should be carried here
- Identify where revenue generation and growth will occur in the UK as a result of the innovation being developed and exploited
Also, successful applications should consider:
- developing new, sustainable polymer materials
- developing sustainable plastic alternatives
- alternative business models and supply chains that use less plastic
- supporting circularity through improved resource use and design
- new product designs
- technology-enabled models that change consumer behaviours
- new recycling processes, including collecting, sorting and processing of waste plastics
- increasing the value of recycled polymers
- scalable, technology-enabled remedial solutions
Source: Innovate UK
If you think your business is most suited to run for this funding opportunity, but you don't know how, Please do get in touch for a FREE consultation.
EU financing of €122m for transport projects: Six days left!
Businesses in the transport sector have time until 16 January 2019 to submit short project proposals in the areas of waterborne transport, logistics, aviation, transport infrastructure and safety, and so have the chance to get access to €122m worth of funding under the 2018-2020 Horizon 2020 Work Programme.
The funding is divided into eight different topics (available here) and Applicants have to submit their proposals electronically, as a part of a two-stage process. Proposals submitted by 16 January 2019 will be evaluated within the next three months; successful applicants will be invited to proceed onto the second stage and submit full project proposal by 12 September 2019.
The final decision about which projects will receive EU funding will be known the latest by February 2020 at the latest.
Applicants are invited to consult the General Annexes (pdf) of the 2018-2020 Work Programme for rules on funding, standard eligibility criteria, submission rules, funding rates and other useful information.
Source: ec.europa.eu
What to expect from 2019?
2018 has been a rather successful year for us at RedKnight and we welcome the New Year with high hopes for an exciting 2019. But what do we really have to expect from January onwards? What are the upcoming competitions and which sectors are most likely to take centre stage? In this article we will take a look at the possibilities both Innovate UK and the EU have in store for us:
UK Plans in 2019
To understand what the UK's plans for this year could be, we have to look the last Budget approved by Westminster in October 2018. The UK Government has committed to providing an additional £1.6bn to fund the Industrial Strategy Challenge Fund (ISCF), which will focus around some (if not all) of the following challenges:
-Clean Air
-Reduction in plastic pollution
-Industrial digitisation
-Innovative Mobility (Road, Rail and Air)
-Industrial Transformation
-Cyber security
-Early detection of diseases
-Sustainable packaging
In addition, following the trend set by the Faraday Battery Challenge, up to £78m funding has been confirmed for the Stephenson Challenge to support innovation in electric motor technology, making vehicles lighter and more efficient. Other important key points to consider are the extension to the Government Start-up loans scheme until 2021 and a £25m boost to Knowledge Transfer Partnership (KTPs).
On top of that, when the UK leaves the EU, amongst other things, it will also leave the Common Agricultural Policy, creating a funding void that definitely needs to be filled. Therefore, agriculture could very well be another important area to watch closely for new funding opportunities; at least in the medium-long term.
Finally, the Report on the UK’s approach to cryptoassets and distributed ledger technologies in financial services published at the end of October, might suggest these new technologies will receive particular interest in the following calls, also in light of the new £50m per year fund designed to address the most pressing challenges in areas such as public health and cyber security, and due to begin in 2021-2022.
EC Plans in 2019
March 2019 will mark the historical exit of the UK form the EU. Until then, UK organisations can still apply for EU funding (and they are warmly encouraged to do so). Thus, it is even more so important to understand what 2019 is going to look like.
The Commission's priorities for 2019 have been clearly displayed in the Work Programme for 2018-2020, which sets the strategy for the last stage of Horizon 2020. The budget allocated for the European Innovation Council (EIC) pilot competitions, will see a general increase: up to €552.26m for the SME Instrument competition and €247.50m for the Future Emerging Technologies Open competition. The budget for Fast Track to Innovation calls will be kept at €100m.
Here, we have selected a pool of challenges that are likely to be of major interest for the EU during this final Work Programme period:
-Nanotechnology
-Blockchain technology
-Marine resources and sustainability
-Clean air and clean energy
-Space
-Food and Agri-food security
-Sustainable agriculture and rural renaissance
-Digital Health and early warning for epidemics
-Low carbon solutions
What can RedKnight do for you?
We hope this brief summary has helped you better understand what 2019 might have in store. If you have realised your innovation fits very well in one of the above areas, why not getting in touch with us for a FREE consultation? We can help you prepare your innovative ideas for the upcoming competitions, so that you can start the New Year in pole position!
£8 million available to develop world-leading civil aerospace tech
UK organisations now have the opportunity to get innovation grants to develop disruptive solutions that will reshape future flight technologies and will prepare the UK to face the upcoming aerospace challenges.
The funding, a total of £8 million, will be co-founded and co-managed by Innovate UK, the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy and the Aerospace Technology Institute, and will be shared across 3 competitions:
- Collaborative feasibility studies
- Expression of interest for fast-track collaborative research and development projects that could be exploited within 3 to 5 years
- Longer collaborative research and development projects, taking 5 years or more for exploitation
All 3 opportunities will be managed using a portfolio approach and funding will be split according to themes, project duration and costs.
In particular, the competition on collaborative feasibility studies will stay open from 14 January 2019 up until 27 February 2019; UK businesses of any size can apply for share of the funding that will cover 50% of the project costs (expected to cost between £255,000 and £500,000 and last up to 12 months). Applicants should present high risk projects that demonstrate disruptive and high impact innovations to solve the biggest aerospace challenges in the UK, such as:
- Medium-long range aircraft design
- Urban vehicles designed for
- Requirements for a scalable, hybrid electric power demonstrator facility
- High-temperature, superconducting electrical power machines
- Assessing environmental impact of air emissions
- Integration of automation into controlled airspace
Source: Innovate UK
Sweet success for Diabetic Foot Ulcer (DFU) diagnosis and monitoring device
RedKnight are delighted to announce it has supported South Wales based Thermetrix Ltd with a successful proposal to Horizon 202's SME Instrument Phase 1 programme, winning the company €50k to further develop its innovative med-tech product called PODIUMTM.
The PODIUMTM technology is a novel, extremely reliable and highly sensitive solution for the cost-effective diagnosis and monitoring of Diabetic Foot Ulcers (DFUs) through rapid temperature imaging and reliable analysis of thermographs. The phase 1 project will enable Thermetrix to experiment with the higher efficacy, diagnostic value, convenience and cost-effectiveness of PODIUMTM over conventional approaches.
Dr Peter Plassmann, CEO of Thermetrix Ltd said of the success, RedKnight was instrumental in securing this grant. The company fully understood our technology and the advantages it offers. They contributed extensive background research and insider know-how on the European Commission's expectations and selection process, took us by the hand and drove the application process to its successful completion.
Today, there are 60m adults suffering from diabetes in Europe and 3.8m in UK (expected to rise to 50m by 2025). Diabetes has a high mortality rate caused mainly by complications (75,000 deaths per annum, of which 24,000 are premature). One life-threatening complication of diabetes is the development of a DFU. Studies reveal a 12% - 255 lifetime risk of developing DFU for diabetics, meaning over 9m people in Europe might suffer from a DFU in their lifetime. A serious consequence of DFU treatment amounting to 290,000 - 450,000 amputations a year in Europe, at a cost of €2 - 2.5bn.
Critically, a timely response from physicians, facilitated by PODIUMTM, could significantly reduce DFU - related amputations. The technology will provide a considerable Quality of Life (QoL) improvement for users and enable substantial savings to healthcare providers, even if only a very small percentage adopt PODIUMTM.
Dr Peter Plassmann - CEO - Thermetrix Ltd
RedKnight was instrumental in securing this grant. The company fully understood our technology and the advantages it offers. they contributed extensive background research and insider know-how on the European Commission's expectations and selection process, took us by the hand and drove the application process to its successful completion.
QuantERA's new joint call on Quantum technologies is now open.
The transnational network QuantERA, a network reaching over 26 countries and 32 organisations in the field of Quantum technologies (QT), has launched on November 21st, 2018 its second joint transnational call for proposals (Call 2019) on quantum technologies research, to fund innovation in QTs. This second round is intended to follow the success of QuantERA’s 1st call for proposals, announced in January 2017, which attracted 221 applicants and awarded over €32m of funding to 128 research teams from 23 countries. This time, the call will cover six main topics in the QT fields:
• Quantum communication
• Quantum simulation
• Quantum computation
• Quantum information sciences
• Quantum metrology sensing and imaging
Submitted proposals are expected to contribute to the development of the emerging field of quantum technologies research in Europe and should explore collaborative and multidisciplinary advanced science and/or cutting-edge innovation with the potential to initiate or foster new lines of quantum technologies and allow Europe to take the leadership early on these promising future technology areas. In addition, this innovation call will be open for funding to all the organisations and business from the 25 countries that are part of the QuantERA netwrok. however, QuantERA aims at spreading research excellence across the European Research Area by encouraging consortia to include partners from the widening countries participating in the call: Bulgaria, Croatia, Czech Republic, Hungary, Latvia, Lithuania, Poland, Portugal, Romania, Slovakia, Slovenia and Turkey.
Applicants can submit their proposals until 18th February 2019. An information & networking session will be organized by the QuantERA consortium on December 5th, 2018 in Vienna during the ICT 2018 Event to allow researchers to exchange ideas in order to form/strengthen consortia for project proposals. QuantERA will give a presentation of the Call 2019 during this meeting. Interested researchers and stakeholders can register for the event here: https://quantera.eu/news/76-networking-session-for-the-quantera-call-2019
To learn more about topics of this upcoming call, participating funding organisations, eligibility and evaluation criteria, please consult the official announcement of the call at www.quantera.eu. If you wish to know more about other open calls for research funding or start-up funding, please consult us at info@redknightconsultnacy.co.uk.
Source: CORDIS
Innovate UK to support the testing of medtech innovations in the NHS
The life sciences sector is one of the most important for the UK economy. It has a £70 billion turnover and employs nearly 235,000 people. However, for as much as the many companies (especially SMEs) that populate this fast-growing sector are contributing to the national economy, the biggest challenge they have to face comes from within the national borders.
Indeed, the lengthy innovation adoption process in the NHS makes it difficult to most of the companies in the sector to provide the real-world evidences to support use of their innovations in the NHS. This is why Innovate UK and the Office for Life Sciences are working in partnership to invest up to £1.5 million in innovation funding for projects that support real-world testing of new medical devices, diagnostics and technologies in the NHS.
Business funding is focussed on small and medium-sized companies that have developed and manufactured innovative health-tech that have gained a CE marking have been marketed it in the UK for less than 5 years. The grant will help those companies either in the development or in the design of plans for collection of data on clinical performance and cost effectiveness or also the actual study.
Successful projects should last between 3 and 12 months and show how they are working with appropriate organisations such as the NHS and the National Institute for Health and Care Excellence. They should aim to have a significant impact and address NHS priorities including:
· reducing cancellations or unnecessary appointments
· reducing the burden on accident and emergency
· improving patient safety
· speeding up diagnosis
· enabling earlier diagnosis of cancer
· supporting management of long-term conditions such as diabetes, chronic pain management, cardiovascular disease, asthma and chronic obstructive pulmonary disease
The new Innovate UK competition opens on 26 November 2018, and the deadline for applications is at midday on 30 January 2019: applicants have to bear in mind that expected costs for planning and preparation projects shall be up to £50,000 and those for actual studies shall be up to £250,000. In both cases, only the lead SME can claim funding as well as attract up to 50% of their project costs.
Source: innovate UK