Two new competitions to decarbonise UK industry
The UK Government aims to achieve net zero emissions by 2050. However, some of the UK’s most economically active and industrially intensive areas are also some of the largest producers of carbon emissions, with around a quarter of all greenhouse gas emissions being produced by industry. For this reason, the Industrial Strategy Challenge Fund has launched two competitions in a new Industrial Decarbonisation challenge.
The Industrial Decarbonisation challenge will commit £170 million towards deploying technologies like carbon capture and hydrogen networks in industrial clusters, supporting the Industrial Clusters Mission to establish the world’s first net zero industrial cluster by 2040.
Competition 1 – deployment
UK businesses will have the opportunity to apply for a share of up to £1 million to develop plans for decarbonising an industrial cluster. To compete in this Deployment phase 1, applicants will have until 4 December to submit their proposals, which must:
- have total eligible costs between £60,000 and £200,000
- be led by a UK business
- be collaborative
- last between 3 and 4 months
- aim to carry out the project work in the UK and exploit the results across other UK industrial clusters
Successful applicants from phase 1 will then compete for phase 2, where up to £131 million will be awarded for projects that will deliver, or support delivery of, significant emissions reductions in a UK industrial cluster by 2030.
Competition 2 - roadmaps
In the roadmaps competition, UK organisations can apply for a share of up to £1 million to prepare plans for their journey to achieving low carbon and net zero industrial clusters. In this competition, applicants will have until 4 December to submit their projects, which must:
- have total eligible costs between £40,000 and £120,000
- be carried out by a single organisation or in collaboration – which we encourage
- demonstrate how it will collaborate within a cluster
- last between 3 and 4 months
- be led by a UK registered business of any size, a research organisation, public sector organisation, charity or academic institution
- carry out its project work in the UK
- intend to exploit the results in at least one UK industrial cluster
In phase 2 up to £8 million will be awarded for the development of industrial cluster decarbonisation roadmaps for major UK industrial clusters. These must set out how a cluster could be decarbonised to net-zero levels.
More information can either be found on the Innovate UK web page or you can always call us for a FREE consultation!
Innovate UK to launch competition in support to food producers
By 2050, the global demand for food is expected to grow by 60 per cent to meet the needs of an increasing and more demanding population. To do this without causing a devastating impact on the environment producers need to supply what we eat in a more sustainable and efficient way, reducing pollution, minimising waste and improving soil conditions.
The UK Government’s Industrial Strategy Challenge Fund Transforming Food Production Challenge has up to £20 million from the fund to invest in large-scale and ambitious projects that help UK food production break out of a traditional land-based model and move towards a sustainable position of net-zero emissions.
The competition will remain open until 22 January 2020 and it will be directed to projects that are either developing new and efficient low-emission food production systems or addressing technological and other bottlenecks holding back state-of-the art systems from supplying consumers.
Areas of work could include indoor growing systems, aquaculture, and new food sources such as insects and fermentation-based systems.
Briefing events will be held in Edinburgh on 8 October 2019 and in Birmingham on 23 October 2019
More information can either be found on the Innovate UK web page or you can always call us for a FREE consultation!
Smart energy and adult care leading the latest round of UK funding
The Summer session of UK funding opens up with two key topics: Smart energy and Social care.
Smart, affordable energy is the aim of the recently opened Round 7 of the Energy Catalyst, which encourages the development of products and services that will help poorer households and enterprises in sub-Saharan Africa access to accessible electricity for the first time by 2021. On the other hand, increasing demand in adult social care services is the main drive for the next Small Business Research Initiative (SBRI) competition, which aims to use technology to make adult social care provision more effective and efficient, and reduce demand on social care services.
Affordable energy in the sub-Sahara
Following what the World Energy Council defined as the ‘Energy Trilemma’, the Energy Catalyst will allocate up to £22 million (partly funded by the Department for International Development and the Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council) to invest in innovative, market-focused energy technologies that will address:
- cost – reducing prices to make energy accessible to everyone
- emissions – generating cleaner energy with lower emissions
- security of supply –reliable infrastructure to keep energy flowing without disruption or shortage
The competition will run from 17 June 2019 to 18 September 2019 and it is going to be divided in three different strands, following different TRLs:
- early – feasibility study
- mid-stage – R&D stage
- late stage – prototype and pilot testing (testing or demonstration must be carried out in sub-Saharan Africa or South Asia by either a UK or international partner)
Better management for better care
The rapid increase in the demand for adult social care services, has put the currently available resources under pressure. Following such premise, the Small Business Research Initiative (SBRI) competition, with funding provided by the GovTech Catalyst for Torfaen County borough council, aims at supporting projects that can use novel technologies to better track data in real-time on how the resources used in adult care are deployed and prioritised. This competition will be delivered over 2 phases:
- Phase 1: feasibility (running from 10 June 2019 to 17 July 2019)
- Phase 2: prototype development (open only to Phase 1 winners)
And it will be likely to fund 5 projects that shall include:
- using technology to improve the point of entry into adult social care
- creating more dynamic and flexible care systems that respond to changing needs
- making better use of evidence to inform commissioning both now and in the future
Source: Innovate UK
Innovate UK ready to fund Smart energy
Starting from 7 May 2019, UK business will have a chance to compete for a share of up to £30 million to develop designs for smart local energy systems that make the best use of innovative technologies including cheaper renewables, energy storage, low carbon heat and digital infrastructure.
The aim of the competition is to create a pipeline of highly innovative, ambitious, local energy system designs that are investable and ready to roll out across the UK in the 2020s.
Projects will create new market and business models using smart energy systems that enable deployment at scale of the latest in energy technologies across heat, power and transport, in a way that is reproducible across the UK.
Projects are expected to:
- develop novel market and business approaches for smart energy systems
- integrate new energy technologies across heat, power and transport in replicable and scalable ways across the UK
- investigate and design approaches that will significantly lower energy system costs and emissions
- create economic benefits for the local area and the UK as a whole
- develop finance and investment models for the deployment of low carbon technologies at scale
To know more, visit Innovate UK or contact us on [email protected]
Source: Innovate UK
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 [email protected]
£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.
£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
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
Innovate UK to support travellers with disability
Applicants shall identify and understand the challenges faced by travellers with a disability and how it affects the way they travel, to develop a mobile app that:
- incorporate journey planning and wayfinding features
- allow designated groups, such as family, emergency services and transport providers, to track the user in case of difficulty
- allow the user to ask third parties for help
- include multi-modal transport options
- have an adaptable user interface, dependent on what the disability is
- have the potential to be expanded at a later date to benefit people with disabilities not included in the initial launch.
Source: InnovateUK
Innovate UK launches competition on developing game-changing innovation
Innovate UK has just allocated up to £20 million into a competition that will finance the best new ideas for products and services developed from cutting-edge technologies. The competition is open to all ideas from any area of technology, science or engineering, including arts, design and creative industries, and can be applied in any sector of the economy.
This competition opens on 12 July 2018, as part of Innovate UK’s open funding programme and will support a range of projects from feasibility studies to longer industrial research and experimental development projects. The deadline for applications is at midday on 12 September 2018.
Eligible projects can be led by a business working alone or with partners or by a research and technology organisation and they must demonstrate they have a game-changing idea that could lead to new commercial products, processes or services. All projects must include at least 1 SME, and, in this regard, there is also an opportunity for businesses to apply for Knowledge Transfer Partnerships (KTPs) (more here)
InnovateUK is expecting to provide funding to projects ranging in size between £25,000 and £2 million and it is also expecting successful projects to last between 6 and 36 months. Businesses could attract up to 70% of their project costs.
For more information see the overall description here, and contact us at RedKnight!
Source InnovateUK