Key Features
UK registered businesses can apply for up to £12 million as part of a collaborative research & development drive into ways to improve and scale up semiconductor manufacture and improve supply-chain resilience within the UK.
Programme: Innovate UK
Award: Share of up to £12 million
Opens: 4th Dec 2023
Closes: 31st Jan 2024
Innovate UK, part of UK Research and Innovation, will invest up to £12 million with the aim of:
The project must realistically and significantly meet and provide a long-term commitment to supporting the UK semiconductor industry requirement.
Your proposal must align to the scope criteria for this competition.
In applying to this competition, you are entering into a competitive process.
This competition closes at 11am UK time on the deadline stated.
This competition follows on from the “Semiconductor manufacturing scale-up – feasibility” call to enable UK businesses in the semiconductor supply chain to develop their manufacturing capability.
This competition’s aim is to help build resilience in the UK supply chain. Your proposal must identify or deliver a clear, game-changing intervention and address a clear industrial requirement or improvement in an area such as:
This must realistically and significantly meet and provide a long-term commitment to supporting the UK semiconductor industry requirement.
Portfolio approach
Innovate UK want to fund a variety of projects across different technologies, markets, technological maturities. This is called a portfolio approach.
Your project can focus on one or more of the following :
This list is not intended to be exhaustive.
Your project must:
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 and Belarusian entity as lead, partner or subcontractor. This includes any goods or services originating from a Russian and Belarusian source.
Lead organisation
To lead a project your organisation must be a UK registered business of any size.
Your project must involve at least one micro, small or medium-sized enterprise (SME)
More information on the different types of organisation can be found in our Funding rules.
Project team
To collaborate with the lead, your organisation must be one of the following UK registered:
Each partner organisation must be invited into the Innovation Funding Service by the lead to collaborate on a project. Once partners have accepted the invitation, they will be asked to login or to create an account in the Innovation Funding Service. They are responsible for entering their own project costs and completing their Project Impact questions in the application.
To be an eligible collaboration, the lead and at least one other organisation must apply for funding when entering their costs into the application.
Non-funded partners
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
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.
Number of applications
A business can only lead on one application but can be included as a collaborator in a further 2 applications.
If an organisation is not leading any application, it can collaborate in up to 3 applications.
You can use a previously submitted application to apply for this competition.
Innovate UK are not funding projects where the primary focus or deliverable is:
Innovate UK are not fund projects that are:
Up to £12 million has been allocated to fund innovation projects in this competition. Funding will be provided 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:
For more information on company sizes, please refer to the company accounts guidance.
If you are applying for an award funded under State aid Regulations, the definitions are set out in the European Commission Recommendation of 6 May 2003.
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 percentage you could get funding for your eligible project costs of up to:
Book an appointment to speak to one of our advisors to discuss your eligibility to apply for this Grant Funding opportunity.
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