Summary
UK registered businesses can apply for a share of up to £14 million for demonstrations of innovative technology for UK foundation industries. Innovate UK has allocated £180,000 for this expression of interest (EoI) stage.
The aim of the competition is to fund research and development projects that demonstrate future technologies, capable of addressing the resource or energy efficiency challenges of the UK’s Foundation Industries. These will be cross-sector, collaborative, demonstration projects. Your proposal must include significant industry investment.
Your EoI proposal must support a future demonstration of an innovation at an industrially relevant scale, which will develop either:
· pipeline technologies to reduce deployment risk and accelerate take-up across industries, largely by reducing payback time
· new technologies that, when deployed, would create a step-change in energy and resource efficiency
Eligibility
If you choose to claim funding, your project must:
· have project costs and claim grant funding of £15,000
· start on 1February 2022
· end by 31March 2022
· last between 1 to 2 months
· carry out its project work in the UK
· intend to exploit the results from or in the UK
You can choose not to claim any grant funding for your costs which will not affect your assessment or invitation to the full stage.
If you are not claiming any funding, your EoI application must be submitted with a zero grant request.
To lead a project your organisation must be a UK registered business of any size, or research and technology organisation (RTO). Academic institutions cannot lead a project.
Scope
Your EoI application must outline your intentions for a full stage project including:
· the project idea or technology being demonstrated
· the market for this demonstration
· the anticipated project consortium, which must contain a minimum of two foundation industries partners
· how the project will meet the minimum project size of £5m and include significant industry investment
The aim of the full stage competition will be to fund demonstrations of future technologies capable of addressing there source or energy efficiency challenges of UK Foundation Industries.
For the full stage competition, your project will need to:
· be collaborative and cross-sector, including a minimum of two foundation industries (cement, glass, ceramics, paper, metals and chemicals)
· demonstrate future technologies at an industrially relevant scale
· include significant industry investment
· improve the sustainability of the foundation industries
· align to the Transforming foundation industries challenge aims
Your project must focus on one of the following themes:
· Energy efficiency: process improvements to increase energy efficiency including innovative heat recovery trials, alternative feedstocks, and new products
· Resource efficiency: including industrial symbiosis, waste utilisation, new products and alternative and biobased feedstocks
· Sensors, controls and digitalisation: with a focus on increased efficiency, productivity to increase energy, or resource efficiency)
· Other energy or resource efficiency improvements: including new products, processes, new services or business models
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