Indian partners must not be invited onto Innovate UK’s IFS application platform. Their involvement in the project is listed as part of your answers to the questions.

Each UK partner organisation must be invited into IFS by the lead to collaborate on a project. Once accepted, partners will be asked to login or to create an account and enter their own project costs and complete their Project Impact questions into IFS.

Non-funded partners

Your project can include partners that do not receive any of this competition’s funding. Their eligible costs will count towards the total eligible project costs.

Indian partners

Indian partners do not need to be invited into Innovate UK’s application on the Innovation Funding Service.

Indian partners will be funded by TDB following a parallel application.

Subcontractors

Subcontractors are allowed in this competition, but they are limited to no more than 20% of the total eligible costs of the UK participation.

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

You can use subcontractors from other countries but must make the case in your application as to why you could not use suppliers from the countries providing grant funding for the project.

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 a subcontractor from a third country.

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

Number of applications

A UK registered business can only lead on one application but can be included as a collaborator in two further applications.

If a UK registered business is not leading an application it can collaborate in up to three applications.

A UK registered academic institution or RTO can collaborate in any number of applications.

Sanctions

This competition will not fund you, or provide any financial benefit to any individual or entities directly or indirectly involved with you, which would expose Innovate UK or any direct or indirect beneficiary of funding from Innovate UK to UK Sanctions. For example, through any procurement, commercial, business development or supply chain activity with any entity as lead, partner or subcontractor related to these countries, administrations and terrorist groups.

Innovate UK recognise partner countries’ approach to countries listed under UK Sanctions may differ from our own and respect the right of our partners to choose who they partner with

Use of animals in research and innovation

Innovate UK expects and supports the provision and safeguarding of welfare standards for animals used in research and innovation, according to best practice and up to date guidance.

Any projects selected for funding which involve animals will be asked to provide additional information on welfare and ethical considerations, as well as compliance with any relevant legislation as part of the project start-up process. This information will be reviewed before an award is made.

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

Exclusions

Innovate UK are not funding projects that:

• focus on military applications
• are not in scope
• do not have a net zero application
• do not include an eligible Indian partner
• do not meet Innovate UK’s eligibility criteria
• do not submit all mandatory documentation

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 £2 million has been allocated to fund UK participants in innovation projects for this competition. Funding will be in the form of a grant.

Each country will fund its eligible participants according to their national procedure and funding rules. Funding conditions and eligibility criteria may vary between UK and India. The bilateral joint cooperation between the partners and its added value is an important aspect to be considered within the evaluation.

UK Partners

If your UK registered 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 feasibility studies and industrial research projects, you can 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 for UK Organisations

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