Circular Economy for SMEs - innovating with NICER, round 2

Overview

Innovate UK, part of UK Research and Innovation, will invest up to £1.5 million in circular economy innovation projects.

This funding forms part of the UKRI National Interdisciplinary Circular Economy Research programme (NICER). It enables SMEs to engage with and benefit from access to expertise at five research centres and hub via collaborative research and development (CR&D) activities.

Scope

The aim of this competition is to support feasibility studies, industrial research and experimental development projects that address the challenges of transitioning to a circular economy.

Your project must demonstrate how you will create a step-change in the adoption of circular economy approaches.

The broad spectrum of circular economy approaches will be in scope, for example:

repair
reuse
remanufacture
recycle
regeneration

Projects are particularly encouraged that focus on retaining the maximum amount of value in a product or system.

Innovate UK aim to fund projects with direct or indirect commercial outcomes for the partners. A project to improve understanding where the outputs would be made freely available to build the knowledge base of the broader NICER programme, for example, would be in scope.

Innovate UK want to fund a portfolio of projects, across the range of resource flows and topics covered by the Interdisciplinary Circular Economy Centres and Hub and types of projects. Applicants must consider the benefits, risks, costs and trade-offs associated with adopting a more circular approach.

The focus on circular economy in this competition does not assume how best to deliver environmental, social, cultural, economic and technical benefits for any particular resource flow.

Your project can focus on one or more of the following examples:

piloting the introduction of a circular economy business model
development or improvement of products and processes to enable remanufacturing, repair and retention of value
increasing understanding and exploitation of material flow data in a defined place, for example; city, Local Enterprise Partnerships (LEPs), cluster, region
scaling-up of credible circular economy feasibility studies
evaluating whether proposed circular economy approaches are more sustainable when considering broader life cycle thinking

Other focus areas that clearly address the challenges of transitioning to a circular economy are welcomed.

Specific Themes

Your project must align with the NICER programme and be supported by a NICER centre or the CE-hub.

Resource flows covered by the Interdisciplinary Circular Economy Centres:

chemicals (specifically Olefins)
bio-textiles
metals (steel and aluminium)
technology metals
mineral-based construction materials

Themes covered by the CE-hub:

cross cutting research to accelerate the transition
data, modelling and measuring impact
knowledge sharing
roadmapping

Further details on themes and potential collaboration topics can be found at NICER CE-hub

Exclusions

Innovate UK are not funding projects that:

do not meet the competition eligibility or scope criteria
are commercialisation activities such as marketing and sales
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
are 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

Eligibility

Your project must:

have total costs between £100,000 and £150,000
start no earlier than 1 May 2023
end by 31 October 2024
last between 12 and 18 months
carry out all of its project work in the UK
intend to exploit the results from or in the UK

Your application must include a letter of support from at least one of the UKRI Interdisciplinary Circular Economy Centres or the NICER CE-hub. The letter must demonstrate alignment of your proposed activities to one or more Centres’ aims and objectives. Collaboration directly with the centres or the hub as a project partner is encouraged but not essential.

Under current restrictions, this competition will not fund any procurement, commercial, business development or supply chain activity with any Russian entity as lead, partner or subcontractor. This includes any goods or services originating from a Russian source.

To lead a project or work alone your organisation must be a UK registered micro, small or medium-sized enterprise (SME)

Academic institutions cannot lead or work alone.

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 by the lead to collaborate on a project. Once accepted, partners will be asked to login or to create an account and enter their own project costs into the Innovation Funding Service.

If part of a collaboration the lead and at least one other organisation must claim funding when entering their costs during the application.

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.

A business can only lead on one application but can be included as a collaborator in a further 2 applications.

If an business is not leading any application, it can collaborate in up to 3 applications.

You can use a previously submitted application to apply for this competition.

Funding Costs

Up to £1.5 million has been allocated to fund innovation projects in this competition. Funding will be in the form of a grant.

If the majority of 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.

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

NICER Centre and Hub academic partners can apply for funding for activities or additional resources and materials that are essential to the project achieving its full potential.

These costs must be eligible project costs, which have not been supported by UKRI funds already awarded.

For more information on company sizes, please refer to the company accounts guidance. This is a change from the EU definition unless you are applying under State aid.

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.

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 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

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Circular Economy for SMEs – innovating with NICER, round 2