Commercialising Quantum Technologies: feasibility studies round 2

Overview

The aim of the competition is to advance the commercialisation of quantum technologies in the UK. This funding is from ISCF.

This advance is achieved through the investment of up to £7 million in innovation projects which address one or more of the following technical challenges:

• connectivity
• situational awareness
• computing

Scope

The aim of the competition is to advance the commercialisation of quantum technologies in the UK. Your proposal must identify a clear market opportunity and an innovative project which exploits it.

The project must:

• study a commercial opportunity
• quantify performance objectives
• provide a roadmap of future exploitation
• exploit second generation quantum techniques

Second generation quantum technologies are defined as those involving the generation and coherent control of quantum states, resulting in phenomena such as superposition or entanglement. We consider technologies involving single photon generation and quantum computing to be in scope.

You must describe how you will collect project metrics, including:

• investment in addition to the project partner matched funding
• additional capital investment aligned to or dependent on the project outcomes

Your project must address at least one of the following:

1. Connectivity: techniques for securing data in storage and in flight.
2. Situational Awareness: Autonomous systems. Sensors and detectors for the built environment, transport and infrastructure. Imaging and sensing “seeing things currently invisible”.
3. Computing: Transformational computers for solving currently intractable problems.

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

• involve consortia which span the supply chain of component suppliers, system integrators, and end user businesses
• focus on maximising UK return from the quantum technology research undertaken by the UK academic base
• bring significant new investment and businesses into the UK’s growing quantum technologies sector
• develop the quantum computing industry sector (hardware, components, simulators, algorithms and software) in the UK

Exclusions

This competition is not funding projects that do not exploit second generation quantum technologies.

Eligibility

Projects can be single or collaborative but must involve a micro, small or medium sized enterprise (SME), either as the lead or a partner.

To lead a project or work alone your organisation must:

• be a UK registered business of any size
• involve an SME
• carry out its project work in the UK
• intend to exploit the results from or in the UK

You can collaborate with other UK registered businesses, research organisations, public sector organisations or charities.

Academic institutions cannot lead or work alone.

To collaborate with the lead, your organisation must:

• be a UK registered business, academic institution, charity, not-for-profit, public sector organisation or research and technology organisation (RTO)
• carry out its project work in the UK
• intend to exploit the results from or in the UK

If a collaboration, the lead and at least one other organisation must claim funding by 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 eligible project costs.

Funding Costs

Up to £7 million has been allocated to fund innovation projects in this competition.

Your project must:

• have total eligible costs up to £500,000 for feasibility studies
• have total eligible costs up to £50,000 for market research projects
• start by 1 February 2022
• end by 31 July 2023
• last from 12 to 18 months

If your organisation’s work on the project is mostly 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 market 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

The research organisations undertaking non-economic activity as part of the project can share up to 50% 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.