CAM Pathfinder: Feasibility studies 2

Overview

The Connected and Automated Mobility (CAM) Pathfinder programme lays the foundations for an early commercial market. It positions the UK to secure first mover advantage in Europe for the deployment of CAM products and services.

The programme will support the UK CAM sector to accelerate its technological capabilities and demonstrate CAM operations as commercially viable.

This programme will focus on high value market segments in the early commercialisation of these technologies, whilst also ensuring these are safe and secure for all.

Innovate UK, part of UK Research and Innovation, will invest a minimum of £1.5 million for up to eight projects from this competition. This is subject to a sufficient number of high quality applications being received.

Innovate UK reserve the right to adjust funding allocations for any of our competitions under exceptional circumstances, for example, in response to changes in policy, portfolio funding considerations, or broader government funding decisions.

Scope

The aim of this competition is to fund feasibility studies for early commercial Connected and Automated Mobility (CAM) opportunities. Successful projects are expected to enable organisations to create business cases for deployment opportunities in high value areas.

Business cases must be sufficiently detailed to allow investment decisions or must highlight existing barriers which prevent this. Proposed deployments must operate commercially without safety drivers at a specified location in the UK.

Your project must:

result in a detailed business case enabling a decision either to invest in the project, and therefore the UK, or show clearly the additional steps and measures required to allow the decision
focus on opportunities that could operate commercially without safety drivers at a specified location in the UK, quantifying the job opportunities in the operation of the CAM service and productivity benefits to the economy
evidence the impact, and potential opportunities, for the UK CAM supply chain and where appropriate highlight opportunities to exploit linkages to technology developers
deliver a detailed closeout report to present at a closeout meeting with Zenzic to review the business case, its outcomes and next steps, prior to closure and payment of the final claim
be led by an organisation looking to deploy a vehicle service into an operational environment, or led by an operator who will be operating and running the CAM service
engage with necessary regulatory bodies to ensure both industry and regulators remain well informed
engage with technology developers to ensure market readiness of the technologies to be deployed in the business case
include in your closeout report, gaps in UK technology providers for the proposed service

Limited technology trials or development are permitted only to support the investigation toward the feasibility of the service or provide data to the business case, when it is not available through other means.

Terminology in your application must comply with the meanings detailed in the BSI Flex 1890 v6.0:2025-03 Connected and Automated Mobility (CAM) – Vocabulary.

Portfolio approach

Innovate UK want to fund a variety of projects across different sectors, markets, technological maturities, service types, geographies, deployment domains, vehicle types, technologies and types of project collaboration. Innovate UK call this a portfolio approach.

Specific Themes

Your project must focus on one or more of the following:

off-highway vehicles and services without public access
freight and logistics vehicles and services
personal mobility vehicles and services
public transport vehicles and services
specialist service vehicles, for example, road sweepers, refuse trucks

Eligibility

Your project must:

have a grant funding request of between £100,000 and £250,000
last between six and nine months
not start before 1 April 2026
end by 31 March 2027

Any funded organisation must carry out their project work in the UK and must intend to exploit the project results in the UK.

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 Grant Offer Letter has been approved by Innovate UK. Any delays within Project Setup may mean we need to delay your project start date.

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.

Lead organisation

To lead a collaborative project your organisation must be one of the following:

a UK registered business of any size
a local authority
a transport authority

To work alone your organisation must be a UK registered business of any size.

More information on the different types of organisation can be found in our Funding rules.

Academic institutions cannot lead or work alone.

If the lead organisation is a local authority or a transport authority, it must collaborate with at least one grant claiming business.

Project team

To collaborate with the lead, your organisation must be one of the following UK registered:

business of any size
academic institution
charity
not for profit
public sector organisation
research and technology organisation (RTO)

Each partner organisation must be invited into the Innovation Funding Service (IFS) 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 IFS. They are responsible for entering their own project costs and completing their Project Impact questions in the application.

Collaborations that do not meet the ‘effective collaboration’ criteria will remain eligible but will be treated as single applicants during the portfolio review.

To be considered as an effective collaboration, the lead and at least one other organisation must:

apply for funding when entering their costs into the application.
include rationale for the collaboration and describe the structure in your application
ensure any one partner does not account for more than 70% of the total eligible costs

Effective collaborations consist of separate legal and non-linked entities. An effective collaboration between different organisations will only be considered to be valid if the following criteria apply between those organisations:

there is a no common shareholder with more than 25% ownership in each of the collaborating businesses
there is no common ‘person with significant control’ (as per Companies House definition) in each of the collaborating businesses
a ‘person with significant control’ in one collaborating business has a share of no more than 25% ownership of another collaborating business
a collaborating RTO has less than 50% ownership of a collaborating business

Non-funded partners

Your project can include organisations who do not claim any funding for their work on the project. Their costs will be covered from their own resources. These can include UK, EU and other non-UK organisations. Non-UK partners are permitted to carry out project work from within their home countries and exploit the results outside the UK. Where non-funded partners have been invited to the application on IFS, their costs will count towards the total eligible 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 cannot use subcontractors 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. Innovate UK 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, or a local authority or transport authority can only lead on one application and cannot be included as a collaborator in any other applications.

If your organisation is not leading an application it can collaborate in up to two 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.

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.

Applicants must ensure that all of the proposed work within projects, both that in the UK and internationally, will comply with the UKRI guidance on the use of animals in research and innovation.

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 are:

producing a business case at a system or sub system level, which does not directly deliver a CAM enabled service
technology feasibility studies
industrial research or experimental development projects
related to rail vehicles, air or waterborne craft
using micro goods vehicles, indoor or pavement based robots or vehicles
focussed on levels of automation of level 3 or lower, as defined by SAE J3016

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

A maximum of £1.5 million has been allocated to fund innovation projects in this competition. This is subject to a sufficient number of high quality applications being received. Funding will be 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.

The balance between your total eligible project costs and the amount of grant awarded must be funded by the organisation receiving the grant.

For feasibility studies, 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.

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.

Innovate UK may revoke our decision to provide funding without notice if government commitment for this initiative is withdrawn.

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 the project lead is a business, or up to 50% if the project lead is a local authority or transport authority.

If your consortium contains more than one research organisation undertaking non-economic activity, this maximum is shared between them. Of that percentage you can get funding for your eligible project costs of up to:

100% of your eligible project costs if you are an RTO, charity, not for profit organisation, public sector organisation or research organisation
80% of full economic costs (FEC) if you are a Je-S registered institution such as an academic

Eligibility criteria for claiming 80% of FEC funding

Research organisations using the Je-S system must submit their costs through the Je-S system which calculates the 80% FEC figure.
On IFS, only the 80% FEC output should be entered at 100% funding.
Applicants do not need to show the remaining 20% on the finance table.

To find out more see our: Cost Guidance for Academics.

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