Feasibility Studies in Quantum Computing Applications

Key Features

UK registered businesses can apply for a share of up to £8 million for innovative solutions to industrial problems using Quantum Computing. This funding is from the National Quantum Computing Centre (NQCC) programme.

Programme:     Innovate UK

Award:     Share of up to £8 million

Opens: 13th Feb 2023

Closes: 29th Mar 2023

! This scheme is now closed

Overview

Innovate UK, part of UK Research and Innovation will invest up to £8 million in innovation projects. These will be for innovative solutions to industrial problems using quantum computing (QC) and explore the impact and feasibility of such applications.

Scope

The aim of this competition is to bring together end users from many industry sectors, with experts in Quantum Computing (QC). They will identify and develop use cases in the UK that demonstrate the potential and commercial benefits of this technology.

The industry sectors are, but not limited to:

  • manufacturing
  • transport
  • financial services

The proposal must identify a commercial application of QC. It must address one or more of the following activities:

  • developing a use case with clear industrial applications
  • developing a novel quantum algorithm or apply an existing one for solving problems observed in industry
  • analysing the hardware and software requirements for solving industrial problems with quantum computers
  • benchmarking a quantum application solution on quantum hardware or on a quantum emulator
  • developing hardware tied to a particular application or set of applications

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

Eligibility

Your project must:

  • have total costs of up to £500,000
  • start by 1 September 2023
  • end by 28 February 2025
  • last up to 18 months
  • have one or more end users within the consortium
  • carry out its work in the UK
  • intend to exploit the results from or in the UK

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.

To lead a project your organisation must:

  • be a UK registered business of any size
  • collaborate with other UK registered organisations

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

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.

To be an eligible collaboration, the lead and at least one other organisation must apply for funding when entering their costs into 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.

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 could not use suppliers from the UK.

Exclusions

Innovate UK are not funding projects that:

  • do not directly address a specific industrial problem or set of problems
  • do not specifically involve an application of quantum computing
  • seek to demonstrate the advantage of classic computing over quantum computing

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

Up to £8 Million has been allocated to fund innovation projects in this competition. 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.

For feasibility studies, 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 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 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. Of that 50% 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

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.