Innovate UK Grant - Catalysing Green Innovation: Strand 1

Opened on the 16 June 2020, this competition strand is to facilitate UK supply chain and manufacturing capability growth in power electronics, machines and drives (PEMD). This is to enable future improvements in:

• productivity
• capacity
• quality
• efficiency

What funding is available?

Innovate UK have allocated up to £5 million to fund innovation projects in this competition.

If your organisation’s work on the project is mostly commercial or economic, your funding request must not exceed the limits below. These limits apply even if your organisation normally acts non-economically.

For industrial research projects, you could get funding for your eligible project costs of:

• up to 70% if you are a micro or small organisation
• up to 60% if you are a medium-sized organisation
• up to 50% if you are a large organisation

For experimental development projects which are nearer to market, you could get funding for your eligible project costs of:

• up to 45% if you are a micro or small organisation
• up to 35% if you are a medium-sized organisation
• up to 25% if you are a large organisation

The research organisations undertaking non-economic activity as part of the project can share up to 30% of the total eligible project costs.

Your project:

Your project must:

• have total eligible costs between £100,000 and £500,000
• start by 1 November 2020
• last between 3 and 9 months

If your project’s total eligible costs 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. Innovate UK will decide whether to approve your request.

Lead organisation

To lead a project your organisation must:

• be a UK registered business of any size
• collaborate with other UK registered businesses, research organisations, public sector organisations or charities
• carry out its project work in the UK
• intend to exploit the results in the UK

Academic institutions and RTOs cannot lead.

Find out which definition your organisation falls into.

Proposals:

The aim of this competition strand is to facilitate UK supply chain and manufacturing capability growth in power electronics, machines and drives (PEMD). This is to enable future improvements in:

• productivity
• capacity
• quality
• efficiency

Your proposal must be able to start by 1 November 2020, show a demonstrable benefit to the UK PEMD supply chain, ideally impact on more than one application sector and demonstrate future return on investment.

Your project must be stand-alone with clear deliverables and must be exploitable through future activities.

Innovate UK are looking to fund a portfolio of projects, across the breadth of the supply chain for power electronics, machines and drives that help us to achieve the objectives for the Driving the Electric Revolution challenge.

Your project can focus on one or more of the following:

Manufacturing process development, such as:

• innovations and approaches to improve manufacturing productivity
• implementation of an innovative new tool into a process line
• automation of a specific process
• reconfiguring a process line in an innovative way to improve productivity or flexibility

Design for manufacture, such as:

• designing/redesigning a product where the focus is on how you manufacture it more efficiently and cost effectively
• specification of a manufacturing process
• virtual process development (VPD) including improvements in modelling and simulation software
• developments which enable products to be manufactured with recycling taken into consideration

Circular economy, including: