Launchpad: health technology, West Yorkshire - R1 CR&D

Overview

Innovate UK, part of UK Research and Innovation, is to invest up to £2 million in innovation projects.

The funding will support projects across the three Launchpad competition strands that target the innovation cluster in West Yorkshire.

Scope

The aim of this competition is to support outstanding innovation projects led by businesses. Your business must be active or growing work activities in the health technology innovation cluster in West Yorkshire.

The geographical requirement is set to align this competition to the Government’s goals in the Levelling Up White Paper.

Your project must focus on health technology innovation.

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

medical devices
diagnostics, including In-Vitro Diagnostics (IVD)
digital health, including data driven health technologies and artificial intelligence (AI)
other health technology innovations that can be shown to be in scope

Your project must 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.

Innovate UK want to fund a variety of projects across different durations, locations, and themes. Innovate UK call this a portfolio approach.

In support of the Government’s Levelling Up goals, we reserve the right to prioritise projects that:

are shorter in duration
significantly advance innovation in health technology
are led by businesses already based in the innovation cluster
have greater levels of activity outside the Greater South East

Specific themes

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

overcoming health inequalities
global net zero challenges in healthcare
major health conditions
the prevention of disease
earlier and better detection and diagnosis of disease

This list is not exhaustive. Where you can show your proposal fits within the scope of this competition you can focus on other themes.

Eligibility

Your project must:

have a total grant funding request of between £150,000 and £1 million
last between 6 and 18 months
intend to exploit the results from or in the UK
start at the earliest on 1 April 2024
end by 31 March 2026

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.

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 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 registered business of any size
be or involve at least one grant claiming micro, small or medium-sized enterprise (SME)
collaborate with other UK registered organisations
be active or growing your work activities in the health technology innovation cluster in West Yorkshire
have a demonstrable ambition for business growth

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

Academic institutions cannot lead or work alone.

Project team

To collaborate with the lead, your organisation must be one of the following UK registered:

business of any size
academic institution
charity
not for profit
public sector organisation
research and technology organisation (RTO)

The contribution of project partners must add to the innovation led growth of the cluster.

Each partner organisation must be invited into the Innovation Funding Service (IS) by the lead to collaborate on a project. Once partners have accepted the invitation, they will be asked to login or to create an account in IFS. They are responsible for entering their own project costs and completing their Project Impact questions in the application.

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

Non-funded partners

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

Subcontractors are allowed in this competition. Their contribution must add to the innovation led 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.

Number of applications

A business can lead on only one CR&D strand application for this competition, but can be included as a collaborator in any number of applications.

If an organisation is not leading any application, it can collaborate in any number of applications.

If you apply to the MFA strand of this competition, as well as this CR&D strand, each project must be clearly distinctive and separate. Innovate UK will monitor closely for this separation if you are awarded funding in both competition strands.

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

Exclusion

Innovate UK are not funding projects that:

do not contribute to innovation activity in the health technology cluster in West Yorkshire
are within scope of the Cluster management strand of this Launchpad competition
request grant funding of less than £150,000 or more than £1 million

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 £2 million has been allocated to fund innovation projects across the three strands of this Launchpad competition for West Yorkshire.

The total funding available for this Launchpad competition can change. The funders have the right to:

adjust the funding allocations between all Launchpad competitions and strands
apply a ‘portfolio’ approach

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:

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 experimental development projects which are nearer to market, you could get funding for your eligible project costs of:

up to 45% if you are a micro or small organisation
up to 35% if you are a medium sized organisation
up to 25% if you are a large organisation

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:

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

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Launchpad: health technology, West Yorkshire – R1 CR&D