Overview
Innovate UK’s Driving the Electric Revolution challenge, part of UK Research and Innovation, will invest up to £4.5 million in projects building talent for the future.
The aim of this competition is to create and deliver course content and materials that will support skills, talent and training across Power Electronics, Machines and Drives (PEMD) manufacturing and supply chains; building awareness of PEMD and filling key gaps in the UK’s workforce talent and training capabilities.
Opportunities could include but are not limited to:
- schools’ engagement
- apprenticeships and internships
- upskilling and reskilling of existing workforce
- technical courses and vocational training
- undergraduate, postgraduate and continuing professional development (CPD)
Scope
This is an expression of interest (EoI) competition. You must have a successful application in this competition before you can be invited to apply to the full stage competition.
Your project must demonstrate.
- strong industrial links and a well-defined industry focus
- an understanding and awareness of the PEMD industrial skills that are currently lacking and possible future requirements to enable the workforce
- an innovative, ambitious and realistic idea to meet a significant PEMD talent requirement
- planning for, and commitment to, creating and maintaining the resource on an ongoing basis for a minimum period of 3 years after project completion
- that you will provide new opportunities not already available, to the UK, a region or group of underrepresented people
- that it has the capacity and capability to be delivered successfully and on time
- value for money and evidence a return on investment, in terms of trained, upskilled and reskilled people
You can:
- produce content and material for outreach, engagement and learning purposes
- conduct PEMD outreach and engagement exercises to individuals, academia, industry and other groups
- generate and deliver course material or facilitate the running of courses
- provide training or incentives for training to specific groups of underrepresented people or in specific training subjects
This list is not intended to be exhaustive.
Innovate UK want to fund a portfolio of projects, across a variety of key industrial needs and gaps in UK PEMD workforce skills, talent pipeline and training capabilities.
Specific Themes
Your project must focus on one or more of the following:
- defining and filling key gaps in the UK’s PEMD manufacturing and supply chain workforce and training capability
- producing industry compatible training programs in PEMD
- promoting skills in design for manufacture and design for assembly
- increasing interaction between academia or training establishments and industry to ensure skills streams for the future, including: apprenticeships, internships, sandwich courses
- delivering academic courses or practical training areas such as: schools’ engagement, upskilling and reskilling of existing workforce, technical courses and vocational training, undergraduate, postgraduate and continuing professional development (CPD)
- improving the quality and capacity of existing training delivery
- outreach and engagement material focusing on PEMD for all ages and levels in academia and industry
- supporting and promoting equality, diversity, and inclusion within PEMD technology training, manufacturing, or research
- providing training or incentives for training to specific underrepresented groups of people or in specific training subjects
Eligibility
If your application is successful in this EoI stage, you will be invited to apply into the full stage competition.
This competition is open to single applicants and collaborations.
Your project must:
- have total eligible costs between £50,000 and £1 million
- start by 1 October 2022
- end by 31 March 2025
- last between 6 and 30 months
- carry out its project work in the UK
- intend to exploit the results from or in the UK
To lead a project or work alone your organisation must:
- be a UK registered business of any size, research organisation, research and technology organisation (RTO), academic institution, charity, not-for-profit, or public sector organisation
- demonstrate clear industrial support for your application, covering a cross section of technologies and sectors
- work in, or have strong industrial ties with the PEMD sector
- carry out its project work in the UK
- intend to exploit the results from or in the UK
To collaborate with the lead, your organisation must be a UK registered:
- business of any size
- research organisation
- research and technology organisation (RTO)
- academic institution
- charity
- not-for-profit
- public sector organisation
Subcontractors are allowed in this competition.
You can use a previously submitted application to apply for this competition.
Exclusions
Innovate UK are not funding projects that
- are not related to PEMD skills
- are PEMD CR&D projects
- are dependent on export performance
- are dependent on domestic inputs usage
- concern maintenance of Electric Vehicles
- offer aftermarket support
- concern servicing mechanics
Funding Costs
Innovate UK have allocated up to £4.5 million to fund projects in the full stage competitions.
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.
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 100% of the total eligible project costs.
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 eligible project costs if you are an RTO, charity, non-profit organisation, public sector organisation or research organisation
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