A4I Round 5

Key Features

UK businesses can apply for a share of up to £3 million to address measurement and analysis problems with one or more analysis partner organisations.

Programme:     Innovate UK

Award:     Share of up to £3 million

Opens: 29th Jul 2019

Closes: 4th Sep 2019

! This scheme is now closed

Overview

UK Businesses will work with Innovate UK, part of UK Research and Innovation, to invest up to £3 million in innovation projects.

Scope

The aim of this competition is to help businesses address analysis and measurement problems affecting an existing product, process or service.

For example, to analyse why a certain percentage defect rate is occurring within an existing production process. These are problems that are best explored by experts and cutting-edge facilities available in the UK.

You must outline what you consider to be the benefits of solving your problem, such as improved productivity or competitiveness.

Innovate UK will only consider problems that:

  • are related to the measurement or analysis of some quantities or properties of an existing process, product or service
  • are not effectively solvable by simple ‘off the shelf’ methods or techniques

This is phase 1 of a potential 2-phase competition. A decision to proceed with phase 2 will depend on the outcomes from phase 1.

Phase 1 is an Expression of Interest (EoI) phase. Only successful applicants from phase 1 will be able to apply to take part in phase 2.

Eligibility

To lead a project your organisation must:

  • be a UK based business of any size
  • be prepared to work with and discuss your problem with one or more Analysis for Innovators (A4I) funding partners
  • carry out its project work in the UK

Funding Costs

Innovate UK have allocated up to £3 million to fund innovation projects in this competition.

Your project’s total eligible costs must be between £25,000 and £300,000.

For feasibility studies and industrial research projects, you could get funding for your eligible project costs of:

  • up to 70% if you are a micro or small business
  • up to 60% if you are a medium-sized business
  • up to 50% if you are a large business

Projects must end by 31 March 2021. They can last between 3 and 12 months.

Exclusions

In this competition we will not consider problems that:

  • are not measurement or analysis problems
  • are considered to be resolvable with easily available methods, such as those that do not require any innovative or cutting-edge science or facilities
  • are not related to a company’s existing processes, products or services
  • relate to the development of a new product, software application or service