Key Features
UK registered organisations can apply for a share of up to £3 million for business led projects that grow activities in the advanced manufacturing innovation cluster centred on the Liverpool City Region. This funding is from Innovate UK.
Programme: Innovate UK
Award: Share of up to £3 million
Opens: 13th Feb 2023
Closes: 29th Mar 2023
Innovate UK, part of UK Research and Innovation, is to invest up to £3 million in innovation projects. The funding will support projects across the Launchpad competitions that target the innovation clusters centred on the Liverpool City Region and the Tees Valley.
The aim of this competition is to support outstanding innovation projects led by businesses. Businesses must be active or growing their work activities in the advanced manufacturing innovation cluster centred on Liverpool City Region.
The geographical requirement is set to align this competition to the Government’s goals in the Levelling Up White Paper.
Your project must contribute to a sustainable, safe, advanced, agile and resilient manufacturing sector. Your innovation must make a significant contribution to at least one of the sector’s strategic imperatives:
Your project must commercialise knowledge through innovation activities, and lead to increased investment into research and innovation. It must contribute to growing business activities and economic impact in the cluster.
Your proposal must explain how your team and project will contribute to equality, diversity and inclusivity (EDI) in the cluster.
Your project can focus on one or more of the following core areas:
Projects can also consider the following enabling areas:
Your project must:
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:
More information on the different types of organisation can be found in our Funding rules.
Academic institutions cannot lead or work alone.
The contribution of project partners must add to the growth of the cluster.
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. Their costs will count towards the total project costs.
Subcontractors are allowed in this competition. Their contribution must contribute to the growth of the cluster.
Subcontractors can be from anywhere in the UK and you must select them through your usual procurement process.
All subcontractor costs must be justified and appropriate to the total project costs.
A business can lead on only one application but can be included as a collaborator in any number of applications.
If an business is not leading any application, it can collaborate in any number of applications. Any other organisation type can collaborate on any number of applications.
If you apply to the MFA strand of this competition, as well as this CR&D strand, you must make sure each project is clearly distinctive and separate.
You can use a previously submitted application to apply for this competition.
Innovate UK are not funding projects:
Innovate UK cannot fund projects that are:
We have allocated up to £3 million to fund innovation projects selected across the two strands of this Launchpad competition and the two strands of a second Launchpad competition for the innovation cluster centred on the Tees Valley.
The total funding available for the Launchpad competitions can change. The funders have the right to:
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 industrial research projects, you could get funding for your eligible project costs of:
For experimental development projects which are nearer to market, you could get funding for your eligible project costs of:
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:
Book an appointment to speak to one of our advisors to discuss your eligibility to apply for this Grant Funding opportunity.
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