Application Deadline: January 26th 2022
Innovate the UK, part of UK Research and Innovation, will invest up to £20 million in innovation projects. These will be for innovation in digital technologies to reduce environmental impact within manufacturing processes.
The aim of this competition is to develop digital innovations to improve the sustainability of manufacturing processes. This must result in either reduced material or reduced energy consumption.
Your proposal must deliver sustainable solutions through applying digital technology development to manufacturing processes within a production facility.
Your project must demonstrate the digital innovations that will deliver sustainability improvements.
This competition is split into 2 strands:
- Strand 1 – Digital innovation with manufacturing data
- Strand 2 – Digital innovation in manufacturing processes
Your project must apply to either Strand 1 or Strand 2.In applying to this competition, you are entering into a competitive process. This competition closes at 11am UK time on the deadline stated.
Eligibility
Your project must:
- have total eligible costs between £1 million and £8 million
- not exceed the maximum grant limit of 50% of your total eligible costs for strand 1
- not exceed the maximum grant limit of 40% of your total eligible costs for strand 2
- start by 1 September 2022
- last between 12 and 24 months
- involve a single factory or multiple factories
- include both manufacturing and digital technology capabilities in your consortium
- be applicable to at least 1 manufacturing sector
- carry out all of its project work in the UK
- intend to exploit the results from or in the UK
We encourage projects that cover multiple manufacturing sectors.
If your project’s total eligible costs or duration falls outside of our eligibility criteria, you must provide justification by email to support@innovateuk.ukri.org at least 10 working days before the competition closes. We will decide whether to approve your request. If you have not requested approval or your request has not been approved by us you will be made ineligible and your application will not be sent for assessment.
Lead organisation
To lead a project your organisation must:
- be a UK registered business of any size
- collaborate with other UK registered organisations
- involve at least one SME
Academic institutions and research and technology organisations (RTO’s) cannot lead.
Project team
To collaborate with the lead, your organisation must be one of the following UK registered:
- business of any size
- academic institution
- charity
- not-for-profit
- public sector organisation
- research and technology organisation (RTO)
Each partner organisation must be invited into the Innovation Funding Service by the lead to collaborate on a project. Once accepted, partners will be asked to login or to create an account and enter their own project costs into the Innovation Funding Service.
The lead and at least one other organisation must claim funding by entering their costs during the application.
Your project can include partners that do not receive any of this competition’s funding. Their costs will count towards the total eligible project costs.
Subcontractors
Subcontractors are allowed in this competition.
Subcontractors can be from anywhere in the UK and you must select them through your usual procurement process.
You can use subcontractors from overseas but must make the case in your application as to why you could not use suppliers from the UK.
You must also provide a detailed rationale, evidence of the potential UK contractors you approached and the reasons why they were unable to work with you.
We expect all subcontractor costs to be justified and appropriate to the total eligible project costs. We will not accept a cheaper cost as a sufficient reason to use an overseas subcontractor.
Number of applications
A business can only lead on 2 applications within this competition but can be included as a collaborator in a further 2 applications.
If a business is not leading any application, it can collaborate in up to 4 applications within this competition. Research organisations can collaborate on any number of applications.
Application Procedure
You must read the guidance on applying for a competition on the Innovation Funding Service before you start.
What we ask you
The application is split into 3 sections:
- Project details.
- Application questions.
- Finances.
Interviews
If your online application is successful at this stage, you will be invited to attend an interview, where you must give a presentation. Your interview will take place either online or at a designated location.Before the interview, by the deadline stated in the invitation email, you:
- must send a list of who will attend the interview
- must send your interview presentation slides
- can send a written response to the assessors’ feedback
List of attendeesAgree the list with your consortium. Up to 9 people from your project can attend, ideally one person from each organisation. They must all be available on all published interview dates. We are unable to reschedule slots once allocated.Presentation slidesYour interview presentation must:
- use Microsoft PowerPoint
- be no longer than 20 minutes
- have no more than 20 slides
- not include any video or embedded web links
You cannot change the presentation after you submit it or bring any additional materials to the interview. Written response to assessor feedback
This is optional and is an opportunity to answer the assessors’ concerns.It can:
- be up to 2 A4 pages in a single PDF or Word document
- include charts or diagrams
Official Website: Innovate UK’s Made Smarter Innovation: Sustainable Smart Factory
