Overview

Innovate UK will soon be opening the second round of the new £15m Manufacturing and Materials competition. Businesses in Northern Ireland are invited to apply for a share of this to work on projects that tackle challenges in manufacturing and materials.

Projects must cover one of the following areas:

• innovation in a manufacturing system, technology, process or business model. For example, in process engineering, industrial biotechnology, mechanical conversion processes, coatings, surface engineering, textiles, supply chain management, new product introduction processes or remanufacture
• innovation in materials development, properties, integration or reuse. For example, for light-weighting, energy generation and storage (heat and electricity), electronics/sensors or operation in demanding environments

Materials could include nanomaterials, ceramics, metals and inter-metallics, polymers, composites, coatings, smart materials and joining of dissimilar materials.

Find out more about how we support manufacturing and materials.

Competition information:

• the competition opens on 21 November 2016, and the deadline for registration is at noon on 18 January 2017
• we expect to support a range of project types lasting between 6 months and 3 years and with total costs of between £50,000 and £2 million
• projects must be led by a business and involve at least one SME
• projects lasting more than 12 months or with costs of more than £100,000 must involve 2 or more partners working together
• businesses could attract up to 70% of their total project costs

Programme