Canada-UK Critical Minerals: Sustainability and Circularity

Key Features

UK registered organisations and Canadian SMEs can apply for a share of up to £5.4 million for joint R&D projects focused on driving circularity in critical minerals.

Programme:     Innovate UK

Award:     Share of up to £5.4 million

Opens: 20th Nov 2023

Closes: 3rd Apr 2024

! This scheme is now closed

Overview

Innovate UK, part of UK Research and Innovation, will work with the National Research Council of Canada Industrial Research Assistance Program (NRC IRAP) to invest in innovation projects.

Up to £3.5 million from Innovate UK and up to CA$3 million from the National Research Council of Canada Industrial Research Assistance Program (NRC IRAP), an equivalent of approximately £5.4 million in total, has been allocated to fund innovation projects in this competition.

Scope

The aim of this competition is to foster and support collaborative research and development (CR&D) in critical minerals through Canadian and UK partnerships.

Your joint Canadian and UK project must focus on innovative technologies that enable the development and commercialisation of circular solutions for critical minerals and their supply chains. The project focus should be on the minerals and not on the end application performance.

Your proposal must focus on one or more of the following five themes:

  1. Enhanced Circularity in Critical Minerals – Battery Systems

For example:

  • Improving recovery or efficiency of recovery of critical minerals from battery systems, for example cobalt, nickel, lithium, manganese, from black mass
  • Improving recovery or efficiency of recovery of new critical mineral streams from battery waste, for example graphite, silicon, phosphates
  1. Enhanced Circularity in Critical Minerals – High Performance Permanent Magnets (HPPM)

For example:

  • Safe and economic identification, collection, sorting, separation, dismantling of rare earth element (REE) containing end-of-life products
  • Novel and sustainable routes for processing of recovered REE materials
  1. Sustainable Use of Critical Minerals – Processing & Manufacturing

For example:

  • Novel manufacturing methods and processes across the value chain (from mine to end-product for use in battery systems or high-performance permanent magnet applications) to enhance circularity and sustainability of critical minerals
  1. Sustainable Use of Critical Minerals – Reduction in Use

For example:

  • Novel approaches to reduce reliance on existing critical minerals
  • Complete substitution of critical minerals and systems
  1. Innovations in Environmental, Societal, Governance (ESG) for Critical Minerals

For example:

  • Life Cycle Analysis (LCA) and sustainability models for LCA of critical minerals and systems
  • Measurement and accounting for embedded carbon, radioactivity and other environmental and societal impacts of REE
  • Provenance, for example material passports, digitization or traceability of critical minerals and systems

The examples listed for each theme are not exhaustive.

We particularly encourage projects that:

  • involve consortia which span the supply chain of extraction, refining or processing, manufacturers, integrators and end user businesses
  • seek to progress innovative and scalable technologies from laboratory prototypes to industry ready systems for commercial use

For the purposes of this competition ‘critical minerals’ are defined as either:

  1. Critical minerals identified as either ‘high criticality’ (17 minerals plus the rare earth elements group) or identified in the first ‘watch list’ (5 minerals) in the Resilience for the Future: The United Kingdom’s Critical Minerals Strategy published on 22 July 2022.
  2. Critical minerals identified (29 minerals plus the rare earth elements and platinum group metals group) in Annex A of the Canadian critical minerals strategy published on 09 December 2022.

Innovate UK will fund feasibility projects, industrial research projects and experimental development projects, as defined in the guidance on categories of research.

Eligibility

Your project must:

  • have a grant funding request of no more than £400,000 allocated to UK organisations
  • have a grant funding request of no more than CA $500,000 allocated to each eligible Canadian SME
  • start by 1 September 2024
  • end by 31 August 2026
  • last between 12 and 24 months

Projects should have a balanced contribution of the total eligible project costs among the partners from the UK and Canada.

No one country or project partner can represent more than 70% of the total project cost.

The majority of the project work must be undertaken in the UK and Canada.

Your proposal must demonstrate a clear intention to commercially exploit the results of the project domestically or globally.

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.

Roles and terminology

There must be a “project lead” and this can be either an eligible UK or Canadian organisation. The project lead is responsible for managing the entire project.

The “lead applicant” is the organisation that starts the application on the Innovation Funding Service. This must be a UK organisation.

Canada specific rules

Canadian funding applicants are required to register and submit an Expression of Interest (EoI) to the National Research Council of Canada Industrial Research Assistance Program (NRC IRAP).

The registration deadline for Canadian SMEs applying to the EoI is 15 December 2023.

Canadian funding applicants who do not complete an EoI and have not been invited to proceed will not be eligible for funding through this competition.

Canadian SMEs may only participate in one application either as a project lead or partner. A UK organisation must be listed as the lead applicant on the Innovation Funding Service. If a Canadian organisation is leading the project this should be identified within your application.

Please see the National Research Council of Canada Industrial Research Assistance Program (NRC IRAP) call page for more information in English and French on Canadian eligibility requirements and to register.

UK lead applicant

To start an application on the Innovation Funding Service (IFS), your organisation must be a UK registered business of any size.

Your collaboration must involve at least one grant claiming UK registered SME and one eligible Canadian incorporated, profit orientated SME.

Canadian organisations can be a project lead but cannot start an application on IFS. They must be added as a partner to the UK lead applicant. This is for system functionality reasons.

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

Academic institutions and research and technology organisations (RTOs) cannot lead.

Project team

To collaborate with the lead applicant, you must be one of the following:

  • UK registered business of any size
  • UK registered academic institution
  • UK registered research and technology organisation (RTO)
  • a Canadian incorporated, profit orientated small or medium-sized enterprise (SME)
  • National Research Council of Canada (NRC) researcher
  • Canadian university
  • Canadian research technology organization (RTO)

Each partner organisation must be invited into the Innovation Funding Service by the UK lead applicant to collaborate on a project. Once accepted, partners will be asked to login or to create an account. UK registered organisations must enter their own project costs into the IFS. Canadian organisations do not enter their costs into IFS.

To be an eligible collaboration, at least one eligible business from the UK must apply for funding when entering their costs into the application and partner with at least one eligible Canadian SME.

Non-funded partners

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

Canadian project participants who are not eligible for funding, including large enterprises and industries, are welcome to collaborate as additional participants on a self‑funded basis or as subcontractors.

Subcontractors

Subcontractors are allowed in this competition.

For UK organisations, the cost of subcontractors is limited to no more than 20% of your organisation’s total eligible costs.

All subcontractors must be selected through your usual procurement process.

You can use subcontractors from the UK and Canada.

If you wish to use subcontractors from other countries you 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 or Canadian 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 business can only lead on one application but can be included as a collaborator in one further application.

A UK business that is not leading an application can collaborate on a maximum of two applications.

A Canadian SME may only participate in one application.

UK or Canadian research organisations can collaborate in any number of applications.

You cannot use a previously submitted application to apply for this competition.

Exclusions

Innovate UK are not funding projects that are:

  • focused on end application performance, for example, performance of batteries in electric vehicle (EV) cars or performance of HPPM in motors or drives
  • focused on the improvement in properties or performance in final use, for example, improving charge density in batteries or magnetic properties in HPPM
  • focused on minerals or elements that are not listed in either of the UK critical minerals strategy (either high priority or ‘watch’ list) or Canadian Critical Minerals strategy (Annex A list)
  • innovations without a clear focus on improving circularity and sustainability in critical minerals supply chains

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

Selected collaborative R&D projects will be eligible to receive funding from their respective national funding body.

Up to £3.5 million from Innovate UK and up to CA$3 million from the National Research Council of Canada Industrial Research Assistance Program (NRC IRAP), an equivalent of approximately £5.4 million in total, has been allocated to fund innovation projects in this competition. Funding will be in the form of a grant.

UK 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 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 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

Research participation for UK Organisations

UK 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 a university
  • 100% of your project costs if you are an RTO.

Canadian SMEs

NRC IRAP will provide a maximum contribution of CA$500,000 to each eligible Canadian SME participating in the project. Canadian SMEs may receive up to 50% funding of eligible project costs.

Canadian SME applicants must be registered as NRC IRAP clients to be considered for funding through this competition. Please see the NRC IRAP call page for more information in English and French.

Other Canadian Collaborators

See the Canadian call page for more information in English and French on other Canadian collaborators’ eligibility and 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.