Knowledge Asset Grant Fund: Expand, Winter 2023

Key Features

Eligible UK public sector organisations can apply for up to £100,000 from the Knowledge Asset Grant Fund in this strand. The funding will aid exploitation of intangible assets that have a broader application or client base than their owner organisation.

Programme:     Innovate UK

Award:     Share of up to £100,000

Opens: 15th Sep 2023

Closes: 14th Dec 2023

! This scheme is now closed

Overview

The Knowledge Asset Grant Fund (KAGF) is run by the Government Office for Technology Transfer (GOTT) and funded by the Department for Science Innovation and Technology (DSIT).

The programme has funding available from 2021 to March 2025. Budget limits are imposed at each panel meeting to ensure only the best proposals are funded.

Innovate UK is administering this competition on behalf of GOTT.

Scope

The Knowledge Assets Grant Fund (KAGF) aims to unlock the potential for developing and exploiting public sector knowledge assets. The KAGF provides financial support to help unearth potentially valuable knowledge assets and to develop the exploitation pathway of assets outside of ‘business as usual’ purposes.

The aim of this competition is to support the identification and development of public sector knowledge assets, including repurposing, commercialisation or expanded use. These assets can include:

  • inventions
  • designs
  • certain research and development (R&D) outcomes
  • data and information
  • creative outputs such as text, video, graphics, software and source code
  • know-how and expertise
  • business processes, services
  • other intellectual resources

Potential value includes financial, economic and social benefits and can be achieved through commercialisation or expanded use of the asset across government and stakeholder organisations.

Assets do not have to be potentially revenue generating to attract funding but you must provide a clear plan and timeline to leverage value, for example, as a spinout, licence, open source or prototype.

The Knowledge Asset Grant Fund will support projects, or project stages, which are not suitable to secure investment from private sources. For example, this could be to develop an asset for use across different organisations within government which usually do not collaborate.

Specific Themes

The Government Office for Technology Transfer (GOTT) reserves the right to prioritise projects within specific themes to help meet the Government’s objectives. This competition is specifically not themed. Our next themed competition will be in the Spring 2024 competition.

If actioned, themed competitions will be scheduled within existing funding rounds. The introduction of themed competitions will not have an impact on deadlines and panel dates. GOTT will support themes by providing substantive guidance and application support to ‘on-theme’ projects. Further information will be made available when applicable.

Eligibility

Your project must:

  • have a grant funding request between £25,001 and £100,000
  • start by 1 March 2024
  • end by 31 August 2025
  • last between 2 and 18 months
  • spend at least 50% of the budget during the first half of the project, unless the project starts and ends within the same financial year
  • generate social, financial or economic benefits to the UK
  • develop a knowledge asset that is majority owned by the UK government organisation applying for funding

Projects must always start on the first of the month and this must be stated within your application. Your project start date will be reflected in your grant offer letter if you are successful.

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

Lead organisation

To lead a project your organisation must be a UK public sector organisation headed by an Accounting Officer responsible for upholding Managing Public Money (MPM). Eligible organisations are generally central government organisations and their arm’s length bodies, though others may be in scope.

Your project must have approval from a Senior Civil Servant, or equivalent from the lead organisation, with delegation from the Accounting Officer, up to and including the value of the grant being sought.

Central government departments, Arm’s Length Bodies and Public Sector Research Establishments are eligible for the Knowledge Asset Grant Fund (KAGF).

From 8 June 2023, organisations in the NHS secondary and tertiary care sector, and publicly owned commercial organisations, will not be eligible to apply for grant funding or other services from the Government Office for Technology Transfer (GOTT).

Innovate UK would encourage NHS Trusts to look at alternative funding schemes available to the NHS secondary and tertiary care sector by viewing Health Technology Pathway: Navigation Tool for Innovators in England document.

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.

You must provide a detailed rationale, evidence of the potential UK 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 an overseas subcontractor.

All subcontractor costs must be justified and appropriate to the total project costs. An explanation must be provided as to why external expertise is needed. It is your organisation’s responsibility to ensure any spend of the grant fund follows existing commercial arrangements of your organisation and Crown Commercial rules.

The Knowledge Assets Grant Fund aims to support the development of public sector owned Knowledge Assets for the benefit for the UK. If the KAGF secretariat or panel concludes that the project would disproportionately benefit a subcontractor, the project will be deemed ineligible.

An eligible public sector organisation can lead on any number of applications for different projects.

You can use a previously submitted application to apply for this competition where there has been a significant improvement of the application.

Exclusions

Innovate UK are not funding:

  • fundamental R&D aimed at creating new knowledge assets
  • projects which have already advanced to the point where they could be eligible for investment by private funding sources
  • projects that are directly or indirectly requesting funding for an existing commercial entity that is not a government body
  • projects that aim to subsidise ‘business as usual’ activities, for example, activities directed by Ministers or set out in organisational strategies or remit, unless they address new markets or customers
  • projects that only benefit the organisation applying or existing customers and users
  • privately owned companies, including spin-out companies

Organisations not eligible to apply for the KAGF include, but are not limited to:

  • universities and academic institutions
  • local governments and their organisations
  • local Enterprise Partnerships
  • devolved administrations and organisations overseen by the Scottish Government, Welsh Government or Northern Ireland Executive. This includes NHS Scotland and Wales, and Health and Social Care in Northern Ireland
  • publicly owned commercial organisations, such as The Crown Estate
  • NHS secondary and tertiary care sector, including NHS trusts
  • private sector organisations
  • independent charities

Funding will not be conditional on:

  • export performance, for example, awarding funding to a baker on the condition that it exports a certain quantity of bread to another country
  • UK content, for example, awarding funding to a baker on the condition that it uses 50% UK flour in their product

Funding Costs

The programme has £15 million total funding available from 2021 to March 2025 across all grant streams. Budget limits are imposed at each panel meeting to ensure only the best proposals are funded.

Funding will be in the form of a grant.

You can request 100% funding for your eligible project costs of between £25,001 up to a maximum of £100,000.

Eligible costs include but are not restricted to:

  • market research
  • building prototypes
  • testing asset development
  • gathering supporting data
  • scoping end users requirements
  • exploring IP protection
  • accessing expert advice to support development of the knowledge asset

You must only include eligible project costs in your application

If successful, your award will be finalised pending receipt of a grant agreement. This must be signed by the Senior Officer Responsible, with the appropriate delegation from their Accounting Officer, up to and including the full cost of your project.

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.