Application Deadline: Wednesday 2 March 2022 11:00am
The Advanced Propulsion Centre (APC) provides funding, support and insight for the development of low carbon and net zero automotive technologies. It aims to support the UK’s transition towards net zero product manufacturing and supply chain in the UK automotive sector.
In this competition round APC is investing up to £25 million.
We are looking for collaborative, pre-production research and development (R&D) projects that:
- support the UK’s long-term capabilities by securing long term R&D investment
- achieve through the associated supply chain, the design, build and manufacture of zero carbon tailpipe emission vehicles
Projects must look to fulfil both these criteria to ensure the UK meets the future demand of vehicle-makers.
In applying to this competition, you are entering into a competitive process. This competition closes at 11 am UK time on the deadline stated.
Eligibility
Your project must:
- have total eligible costs between £5 million and £40 million
- be a minimum of 50% match funded
- start by 1 September 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
We suggest projects contain a maximum of 6 project partners.
If your project’s total eligible costs or duration falls outside of our eligibility criteria, you must provide justification by email to info@apcuk.co.uk 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 application 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
- 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 consortium a vehicle manufacturer or tier 1 supplier who supplies parts directly to an original equipment manufacturer (OEM)
- collaborate with others
Academic institutions and research organisations cannot lead projects.
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)
Non-UK registered businesses and research organisations are only eligible to apply for funding if:
- they set up an active UK registered business where the funded project work will be carried out
- provide evidence of an intention to expand their R&D activity in the UK during and after the project
Each partner organisation must be invited into the Innovation Funding Service (IFS) 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 IFS.
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, for example non-UK businesses. Their costs will count towards the total eligible project costs.
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.
If your online application is successful, BEIS Value for Money (VfM) appraisers may want to call you to clarify the information you shared in the written economic assessment feedback questions.
The appraisers will talk to you about any of the following:
- project risks
- why grant funding is required for your project
- any anticipated technology spill-over benefits
- job projections
- expected vehicle sales
- CO2 savings
- project expenditure
The call will happen after you have given BEIS your responses to their economic assessment feedback. This will be before the interviews, and we provisionally expect the calls to take place on 11 and 12 April 2022.
The APC will inform the lead contact of a one hour time slot for the call with BEIS. The time slot is not flexible, due to the number of calls we need to make. We aim to keep calls to a maximum of 4 attendees from the applicant side to ensure the discussion is effective.
On the call we will want to talk to the person who filled out the VfM worksheet and anyone else needed to answer questions about the written economic assessment feedback responses.
We will not ask representatives from each project partner to attend the call.
After the call and the success of your online application, you will be invited to attend an interview where you must give a presentation. Your interview will take place during the week beginning 3 May 2022.
Before the interview and by the deadline stated in the invitation email, you must send:
- a list of who will attend the interview
- your interview presentation slides
- a written response to the technical assessors’ feedback
- a written response to the BEIS economic assessment feedback before the provisional call dates
Please be aware that the dates for these submissions are different. You cannot send them together. You must send your written response to the BEIS economic assessment feedback before the others, so that the VfM call can take place on 11 or 12 April 2022.
You cannot make changes once these are submitted.
Official Website:APC 20: Developing automotive technologies and growing capability towards net zero
