APC23: Industrialising net-zero automotive technology

Key Features

UK registered businesses can apply for a share of up to £20 million for late-stage R&D projects that help accelerate the UK towards a net zero automotive future.

Programme:     APC

Award:     Share of up to £20 million

Opens: 16th Jan 2023

Closes: 15th Mar 2023

! This scheme is now closed

Overview

The Advanced Propulsion Centre (APC) provides funding, support, insight and foresight for the development of low emission transport solutions, and automotive technologies. It aims to support the UK’s transition towards net zero product manufacturing and supply chain in the UK automotive sector.

In this competition round APC is investing up to £20 million.

APC are looking for collaborative, pre-production research and development (R&D) projects that:

  • support the UK’s long-term vision and underpinning capabilities by securing long term R&D investment
  • achieve through the associated supply chain, the design, build, test and manufacture of net-zero carbon emission vehicles

Projects must look to fulfil both these criteria to ensure the UK meets the future demand of vehicle makers and users, strengthening UK’s global impact and, anchoring the value-add across the whole supply chain.

Scope

The aim of this competition is to seek proposals for collaborative R&D projects that design, develop and manufacture technology that will work towards delivering net zero carbon emission on-vehicle technologies for on-road or off-road vehicles.

Your project must:

  • contribute to the UK’s strategic aims and direction of travel towards net zero transport vision, such as the Automotive Council’s Roadmaps
  • deliver on-vehicle technologies and or associated manufacturing processes which support the transition to net zero
  • support growth, transition and security of the UK’s automotive supply chain, increasing capability, whilst improving productivity, efficiency and competitiveness

Your project must advance technologies in one or more of the following areas:

  • energy storage, batteries, their components, management and integration systems
  • fuel cell and associated balance of plant
  • electric machines
  • power electronics
  • fossil fuel free (at the point of use) internal combustion (in the case of on-road solutions, we will support project proposals which aim to achieve zero harmful tailpipe emissions)
  • hydrogen storage and management systems
  • manufacturing processes associated with industrialising relevant net zero technologies
  • direct recycling methods resulting in complete recovery of critical materials
  • digitalisation leveraged during the design, development, testing, validation and verification and production or in-service phases
  • digitalisation for vehicle development and design

The economic benefit of your project will be assessed on criteria including but not limited to:

  • scale and impact on the UK economy
  • foreign investment anchored in the UK
  • jobs created or safeguarded
  • upskilling or reskilling of workforce
  • automotive supply chain in the UK (upstream, mid-stream and downstream)
  • lifetime environmental impact of the vehicle and circular economy models

Your proposal must evidence:

  • a clear route to market exploitation, that can be evidenced, including IP generated for the UK
  • a credible consortium-led approach to the project, agreed in principle and able to proceed to a formal collaborative agreement
  • what would happen should the project not be funded

Projects will be encouraged to disseminate their results to bring benefit to the wider UK automotive industry.

Specific Themes

You must consider which technology or technologies best represent your project and rank them in order of their significance and impact to your project. The one ranked first must be the lead technology.

  • electric machines and power electronics
  • energy storage and energy management
  • lightweight vehicles and powertrain structures
  • fuel cell and associated balance of plant
  • thermal propulsion systems and alternative fuels
  • digitalisation for development of low carbon vehicle innovation, data analytics, redesign, test and validation and verification

Your lead technology must be at least 50%. You can also rank up to an additional two supporting technologies that can have a maximum of 25% each.

Your percentages must add up to 100%.

Eligibility

Your project must:

  • have total grant funding request between £2.5 million and £20 million
  • be a minimum of 50% match-funded
  • start by 1 October 2023
  • last between 18 and 42 months
  • carry out all of its project work in the UK
  • intend to exploit the results from or in the UK

You must only include eligible project costs in your application.

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.

To lead a project your organisation must:

  • be a UK registered business of any size
  • have an active registered business base in the UK
  • be a grant recipient
  • collaborate with other UK registered organisations

Academic institutions and research organisations cannot lead projects.

You must involve at least one micro, small or medium-sized enterprise (SME).

Non UK registered businesses and research organisations are only eligible to apply for funding if:

  • they set up an active UK-registered business where the funded project work will be carried out
  • provide evidence of an intention to expand their R&D activity in the UK during and after the project

Each partner organisation must be invited into the Innovation Funding Service by the lead to collaborate on a project.

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.

There is no limit on the number of applications an organisation can be involved in.

You can use a previously submitted application to apply for this competition, however you can only submit the same application twice, without a material change.

Exclusions

APC are not funding projects that are:

  • focussed only on the development of clean fuels
  • not aligned with the UK’s Ten Point Plan for a Green Industrial Revolution
  • requesting more than 50% grant for total project costs

APC 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

The Advanced Propulsion Centre (APC) invests up to £75 million per annum, in collaborative research and development (CR&D) projects.

These are pre-production projects and applicants should apply for the minimum amount of APC funding required to make the project viable. The total project grant request must be no more than £20 million and no more than 50% of your total project costs. This is regardless of the individual partners’ grant claims.

In this round APC is investing £20 million.

A minimum of 70% of your projects total project costs must be incurred by commercial organisations.

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 experimental development projects which are nearer to market, you could get funding for your eligible project costs of:

  • up to 45% if you are a micro or small organisation
  • up to 35% if you are a medium sized organisation
  • up to 25% if you are a large organisation

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

Advanced Propulsion Centre levy

A 3.5% levy is payable to the APC by all partners on grant received.

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.