Mindset: Extended reality for digital mental health – Strand 2

Key Features

UK registered businesses can apply for a share of up to £4.5 million across two strands of the competition. This is for industrial research projects that provide immersive digital mental health therapeutic solutions.

Programme:     Innovate UK

Award:     Share of up to £4.5 million

Opens: 9th Oct 2023

Closes: 6th Dec 2023

! This scheme is now closed

Overview

Innovate UK, part of UK Research and Innovation, will invest up to £4.5 million in innovation projects across the two strands of the competition.

Scope

The aim of this competition is to is to develop digital therapeutic Extended Reality (XR) solutions to provide improved delivery of mental health and wellbeing services.

Your project must undertake research and development (R&D), in the form of industrial research, in the application of Extended Reality (XR) to provide mental health care solutions.

Your proposal must specifically explore how digital therapeutic content can provide positive mental health applications and outcomes for young adults (aged 13 and above) or older adults.

Your project must demonstrate that the solution could be applied, trialled and ultimately adopted at scale, to provide a broad benefit to the UK mental health sector.

Your project must focus on a digital mental health therapy through the application of Extended Reality (XR).

Eligibility

Your project must:

  • have total project costs between £100,000 and £300,000
  • last between 6 months and 20 months
  • carry out all of its project work in the UK
  • intend to exploit the results from or in the UK
  • start by 1 June 2024
  • end by 31 March 2026

If your project has total costs of below £100,000 or above £300,000 you will be made ineligible and will not be sent for assessment.

You must only include eligible project costs in your application.

Projects must always start on the first of the month and this must be stated within your application. Your project start date will be reflected in your grant offer letter if you are successful.

Under current restrictions, this competition will not fund any procurement, commercial, business development or supply chain activity with any Russian or Belarusian entity as lead, partner or subcontractor. This includes any goods or services originating from a Russian or Belarusian source.

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 project costs.

Subcontractors are allowed in this competition.

Subcontractors can be from anywhere in the UK and you must select them through your usual procurement process.

You can use subcontractors from overseas but must make the case in your application as to why you could not use suppliers from the UK.

You must provide a detailed rationale, evidence of the potential UK contractors you approached and the reasons why they were unable to work with you. We will not accept a cheaper cost as a sufficient reason to use an overseas subcontractor.

All subcontractor costs must be justified and appropriate to the total project costs.

A business can only lead on one application but can be included as a collaborator in two further applications in this strand of the competition.

A business not leading an application, an academic institution, research and technology organisation (RTO), charity, not for profit, or public sector organisation can be included as a collaborator in up to three applications in this strand of the competition.

You can use a previously submitted application to apply for this competition.

Exclusions

Innovate UK are not funding projects that are:

  • early-stage research
  • unsuitable for potential trial following an industrial research cycle of up to 20 months

Innovate UK cannot fund projects that are:

  • dependent on export performance, for example giving a subsidy to a baker on the condition that it exports a certain quantity of bread to another country
  • dependent on domestic inputs usage, for example giving a subsidy to a baker on the condition that it uses 50% UK flour in their product

Funding Costs

Up to £4.5 million has been allocated to fund innovation projects across the two strands of this competition. Funding will be in the form of a grant.

If your organisation’s work on the project is commercial or economic, your funding request must not exceed the limits below. These limits apply even if your organisation normally acts non-economically but for the purpose of this project will be undertaking commercial or economic activity.

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 more information on company sizes, please refer to the company accounts guidance.

Research participation

The research organisations undertaking non-economic activity as part of the project can share up to 30% of the total eligible project costs. If your consortium contains more than one research organisation undertaking non-economic activity, this maximum is shared between them. Of that 30% you could get funding for your eligible project costs of up to:

  • 80% of full economic costs (FEC) if you are a Je-S registered institution such as an academic
  • 100% of your project costs if you are an RTO, charity, not for profit organisation, public sector organisation or research organisation

Interested in applying for this competition?

Book an appointment to speak to one of our advisors to discuss your eligibility to apply for this Grant Funding opportunity.