Contracts for Innovation: READ-OUT digital cognitive dementia assessments

Key Features

Organisations can apply for a single award of up to £600,000, inclusive of VAT, to implement and assess a dementia based digital cognitive assessment (DCA) to be evaluated as part of the READ-OUT study being managed by the University of Oxford.

Programme:     Innovate UK

Award:     Share of up to £600,000

Opens: 14th Apr 2025

Closes: 14th May 2025

! This scheme is closing soon

Overview

This is a Contracts for Innovation: READ-OUT digital cognitive dementia assessments competition funded by Innovate UK.

Scope

This competition supports the government’s Dementia Goals programme.

This competition is a demonstrator and aims to accelerate innovation in dementia based digital cognitive assessments (DCA). High maturity DCA innovations will be deployed and assessed as part of the READ-OUT (REAl-world Dementia OUTcomes) blood based biomarker study and feed into the Davos Alzheimer’s Collaborative System Preparedness project.

Your proposed DCA must demonstrate significant accuracy and specificity to the progression and correlation of diseases that can cause dementia. The University of Oxford will support and facilitate the real world use of the DCA test at READ-OUT clinical sites.

You must demonstrate how proven DCA technologies can be integrated into an NHS environment for the first time as ‘first of a kind’ demonstrations. This competition will support innovative suppliers in preparation for market readiness.

You must describe your projects potential to be successfully exploited in an NHS environment. Any solution must demonstrate full integration with the READ-OUT study.

It is expected that the combination of blood biomarkers and a DCA will provide real time objective measures of cognitive function, capturing behavioural and neurological changes that may not yet be captured in a standard clinical setting. Together, these tools create a powerful, complementary framework that increases the likelihood of early detection.

The proposed digital cognitive assessment should consist of a battery of tests, suitable for people with mild cognitive impairment, or mild to moderate dementia, and recommended to take less than 10 minutes to complete that evaluate key cognitive domains.

Innovate UK anticipate successful DCAs to include measures of processing speed, episodic memory, recognition memory and executive function. Variations or extensions to this list of cognitive domains will be considered but would require strong justification. The test must be able to be implemented in Memory Clinics.

The study is across 10 sites with up to 2,000 patients. Each successful applicant will have access to five sites and up to 1,000 patients.

In this competition you must provide:

  • a mandatory first milestone for formal and legal incorporation into the READ-OUT study by 18 August 2025 if your project is funded
  • a comprehensive plan for deployment and integration into the study
  • licences for digital cognitive testing
  • a sample link to your proposed DCA, to be validated by members of the READ-OUT study and the READ-OUT Patient and Public Involvement and Engagement (PPIE) group

The successful applicant must be ready to implement their DCA test as follows:

  1. Be ready for full deployment into the READ-OUT Study by 1 September 2025.
  2. Be of a length suitable enough for a person with mild cognitive impairment or mild to moderate dementia to complete
  3. Provide evidence of validity and high sensitivity, including prior comparisons with standard neuropsychological tests used in dementia trials, for example, Alzheimer’s Disease Assessment Scale – Cognitive (ADAS-COG) and the Montreal Cognitive Assessment (MoCA) and prior evidence of sensitivity to diseases that can cause dementia.
  4. Comply with all appropriate legislation and have a clear path to regulatory approval, for example, UK General Data Protection Regulations (GDPR) Medical Device Regulations (ISO13485), and Clinical Data Protection Standards.
  5. Be suitable for administration by non-experts, including carers.
  6. Be suitable for different cultures, languages, ethnicities and levels of education.
  7. Be suitable for use by people with mild cognitive impairment or mild to moderate dementia.

The assessment process will include members of the READ-OUT and Dementia Goals Programme Patient and Public Involvement and Engagement (PPIE) groups. The PPIE group will assess the acceptability and usability of your proposed DCA. Their views will feed into the application review and award decision making process

You must demonstrate a credible and practical route to market, so your application must include a plan to commercialise your results.

Contracts will be given to successful applicants.

Specific Themes

Your proposed DCA should evaluate the key cognitive domains, including:

  • processing speed
  • episodic memory
  • recognition memory
  • executive function

Variations or extensions to this list of cognitive domains will be considered but would require strong justification.

Eligibility

Your project must:

  • start on 1 August 2025
  • last up to 20 months
  • end by 31 March 2027
  • have total costs of no more than £600,000 inclusive of VAT

Projects must always start on the first of the month, even if this is a non-working day. You must not start your project until your Contract has been approved by Innovate UK.

You must only include eligible project costs in your application. See our overview of eligible project costs. For specific guidance, see the eligibility section in this competition.

Applicant

To lead a project, you can:

  • be an organisation of any size
  • work with the subcontracted skills and expertise of others from business, research organisations, research and technology organisations, or the third sector (charities, social enterprises and voluntary groups)

Contracts will be awarded to a single legal entity only. The majority of the project work and key deliverables must be completed by the applicant and be carried out in the UK. Subcontractors can be used, but only for specialist skills.

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.

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.

Exclusions

Innovate UK will not fund projects that:

  • are not original in scope and duplicates someone else’s work
  • cannot evidence capacity and preparedness to participate
  • do not have a detailed plan to utilise the data resources in the READ-OUT study
  • do not have appropriate regulatory approvals in place
  • do not have a robust plan to commercialise
  • are not likely to be successfully exploited by the NHS to deliver benefits in clinical practice
  • are not within 24 months of being ready for market
  • are for initial exploration of ideas or low technology readiness prototypes
  • do not have DCAs
  • have a DCA test that cannot be completed by people with mild to moderate dementia
  • do not demonstrate the required scientific specificity or sensitivity
  • have a DCA that cannot be administered by non-experts
  • are not accessible to people with mild cognitive impairment or mild to moderate dementia and their carers
  • are not acceptable to the PPIE group and do not pass their assessment

Funding Costs

A total of up to £1.2 million, inclusive of VAT, is allocated to this competition. The contract is for up to 20 months and we expect to fund two projects.

The total funding available for the competition can change. The funders have the right to adjust the provisional funding allocation.

The contract is completed at the end of the competition and the successful organisation is expected to pursue commercialisation of their solution.

Value Added Tax (VAT)

You must select whether you are VAT registered before entering your eligible project costs.

VAT is the responsibility of the invoicing business. We will not provide any further advice and suggest you seek independent advice from HMRC.

VAT registered

If you select you are VAT registered, you must enter your eligible project costs exclusive of VAT. As part of the application process VAT will be automatically calculated and added to your project cost total. Your total eligible project costs inclusive of VAT must not exceed £600,000.

Not VAT registered

If you select you are not VAT registered, you must enter your eligible project costs exclusive of VAT and no VAT will be added. You will not be able to increase total project costs to cover VAT later should you become VAT registered. Your total project costs must not exceed £600,000.

Research and development (R&D)

Your application must have at least 50% of the contract value attributed directly and exclusively to R&D services, including solution exploration and design. R&D can also include prototyping and field-testing the product or service. This lets you incorporate the results of your exploration and design and demonstrate that you can produce in quantity to acceptable quality standards.

R&D does not include:

  • commercial development activities such as quantity production
  • supply to establish commercial viability or to recover R&D costs
  • integration, customisation or incremental adaptations and improvements to existing products or processes

Subsidy Control

Contracts for Innovation competitions involve procurement of R&D services at a fair market value and are not subject to subsidy control criteria that typically apply to grant funding.

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.