Overview

Innovate UK have announced a £15m funding competition under the themes of Emerging and Enabling technologies.

The aim of this competition is to help businesses innovate to find new revenue sources. Proposals should show how to achieve a step change in business growth, productivity and export opportunities for at least one small and medium-sized UK enterprise(SME).

Proposals addressing the following are particularly encouraged:

• systems that combine multiple technologies to deliver a focused, real-world outcome,eg combining earth observation data from satellites with other technologies to improve business performance
• smart sensor systems that allow intelligent decisions to be made by looking at miniaturisation, low-power processing and communications
• smart technology that provides a richer and more informative output to the end user
• photonics for manufacturing, healthcare and imaging
• digital technologies with substantial potential to change and disrupt sectors of the economy, eg distributed ledgers, augmented and virtual reality.

The eight themes covered in the call are:

• Energy harvesting
• Imaging technologies
• Graphene or biofilms
• Other areas of emerging technology
• Benefits across multiple industrial sectors or markets
• Providing new products and services
• Allow new applications for existing products and services
• Enable new data-handling capabilities or business models

There are two project streams:

• Stream 1: Project costs of up to £100,000

If you are an SME and expect your eligible project costs to be up to £100,000, you may deliver the project on your own. You may also work with other businesses or research organisations.

• Stream 2: Project costs of up to £100,000 or above

If you expect your eligible project costs to be more than £100,000 you must collaborate with at least one other organisation of which at least one of these must be an SME.

Programme