Key Features
UK registered organisations based in Wales, can apply for a grant funding request between £100,000 and £250,000. The organisations must develop innovative products, services or experiences for the media sector.
Programme: Innovate UK
Award: Share of up to £700,000
Opens: 7th Oct 2024
Closes: 4th Dec 2024
Innovate UK, part of UK Research and Innovation, will deliver this competition on behalf of Media Cymru, a consortium of 22 partner organisations led by Cardiff University. The competition is funded by the UKRI Strength in Places Fund to invest up to £700,000.
Media Cymru is a five year programme that aims to turn the Cardiff Capital Region into a global hub for media production and innovation with a focus on green and fair economic growth.
The aim of this competition is to deliver innovative products, services and experiences to address challenges that have been identified within the Welsh media industry, through R&D funding.
Your project must:
The Media Cymru programme strategic pillars are:
Portfolio approach
Innovate UK want to fund a variety of projects across different technologies, markets, technological maturities, location and research categories. Innovate UK call this a portfolio approach.
Innovate UK reserve the right to prioritise projects that:
Following the Innovate UK assessment, all assessed applications will be considered by a panel of independent advisors. The panel will be convened by Media Cymru and chaired independently.
The panel will review the applications in line with the portfolio criteria and recommend to Media Cymru which projects would make up a balanced portfolio across the programme’s four strategic pillars. That recommendation will inform Media Cymru’s final decision on funding awards.
Your project can focus on one or more of the following:
This list is not exhaustive. Where you can show your proposal fits within the scope of this competition you can focus on other themes.
Your project must:
Projects must always start on the first of the month. You must not start your project until your Grant Offer Letter has been approved by Innovate UK. Any delays within Project Setup may mean we need to delay your project start date.
You must only include eligible project costs in your application.
If your project’s start date falls outside of our eligibility criteria, you must provide justification by email to support@iuk.ukri.org at least 10 working days before the competition closes. Innovate UK will decide whether to approve your request.
If you have not requested approval or your application has not been approved by us, you will be made ineligible. Your application will then not be sent for assessment.
Lead organisation
To lead a project your organisation must fulfil all three criteria:
Collaboration is encouraged within the following sectors and with micro, small or medium-sized enterprises (SME) in the supply chain:
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:
Each partner organisation must be invited into the Innovation Funding Service (IFS) 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 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.
International organisations can be invited to join projects as non-funded partners. They will need to add their costs into IFS but they must add a zero for costs being claimed. The international partners must be named and must register as a non Je-S registered partner.
Subcontractors
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.
Number of applications
A business can only lead on one application but can be included as a collaborator in two further applications.
If a business is not leading any application, it can collaborate in any number of applications.
An academic institution, charity, not for profit, public sector organisation or RTO can collaborate on any number of applications.
Sanctions
This competition will not fund you, or provide any financial benefit to any individual or entities directly or indirectly involved with you, which would expose Innovate UK or any direct or indirect beneficiary of funding from Innovate UK to UK Sanctions. For example, through any procurement, commercial, business development or supply chain activity with any entity as lead, partner or subcontractor related to these countries, administrations and terrorist groups.
Use of animals in research and innovation
Innovate UK expects and supports the provision and safeguarding of welfare standards for animals used in research and innovation, according to best practice and up to date guidance.
Any projects selected for funding which involve animals will be asked to provide additional information on welfare and ethical considerations, as well as compliance with any relevant legislation as part of the project start-up process. This information will be reviewed before an award is made.
You can use a previously submitted application to apply for this competition.
Innovate UK are not funding projects that:
Innovate UK will not fund commercialisation activities such as marketing and sales.
Innovate UK cannot fund projects that are:
Up to £700,000 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.
The balance between your total project costs and the amount of grant awarded must be funded by the organisations receiving the grant.
For Research, Development and Innovation Streamlined Subsidy Scheme Category 2, Industrial Research projects, you can get funding for your eligible project costs of:
For Research, Development and Innovation Streamlined Subsidy Scheme Category 2, Experimental development projects which are nearer to market, you could get funding for your eligible project costs of:
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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