NATEP Helping SMEs innovate in aerospace: Autumn 2022

Overview

Innovate UK, part of UK Research and Innovation (UKRI), is working with the Aerospace Technology Institute (ATI) and the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy (BEIS).

A NATEP competition is held approximately every 6 months. This is call 7 of 8 and for each call there is up to £2.5m funding available.

Scope

The aim of this competition is to help SMEs to develop their own innovative technologies. These should enhance their capabilities and increase their ability to win new business in the civil aerospace sector.

Your project must have a credible route to market and preferably have identified your end users.

Your project can:

demonstrate improvement in business productivity and competitiveness
show clear benefit technically
be able to pull through new technology or processes for use in a current or future product or manufacturing process
show clear benefit in creating or safeguarding jobs
be able to enhance capabilities within the broader aerospace industry, as well as other sectors such as advanced manufacturing

We want to fund a variety of projects across different technologies, themes and markets.

Specific Themes

Your project must have a potential application within the civil aerospace sector. This can include dual use technologies.

Your proposal must align with the UK Aerospace Technology Strategy, ‘Destination Zero’, which is split into these areas:

Zero-Carbon Emission Aircraft Technologies

Zero-carbon emission technologies are focused on propulsion and infrastructure development to enable zero-carbon tailpipe emissions. This encompasses battery, hydrogen, and fuel cell technologies, much of which are in early stages of development.

Ultra-Efficient Aircraft Technologies

Ultra-efficient technologies are focused on improving energy efficiency and hence impact CO2 emissions, NOx and noise. Continued development of crucial high value, sustainable, high productivity manufacturing technologies will position the UK to be a first-choice location for the industry.

Cross-cutting Enabling Technologies

To enable both the zero-carbon and ultra-efficient opportunities, the UK must develop cross-cutting enabling technologies and capabilities for whole aircraft design and analysis. These capabilities should extend to the aircraft lifecycle from design, through manufacture & assembly, operation, and end of life.

Eligibility

Your project must:

have total costs between £150,000 and £300,000
end by 31 Dec 2024
last between 12 and 18 months
carry out all of its project 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.

All project partners, including the lead partner must sign up to the ATI Framework Agreement.

Projects in this competition are currently exempt from paying the industrial contribution to the Aerospace Technology Institute.

If your organisation is a UK registered business, or a research and technology organisation (RTO) participating as a business, you must demonstrate in your application that you can provide match funding from entirely private sector sources, across all projects you are involved in.

Your project can include partners that do not receive any of this competition’s funding,

Subcontractors are allowed in this competition.

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

Exclusions

Innovate UK are not funding projects that:

focus solely on defence, space or other industrial sectors, but we will recognise dual use technologies providing the primary application is in civil aerospace
focus on fundamental research, feasibility studies or experimental development
are not in scope of the UK aerospace technology strategy

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 £2.5 million has been allocated from the £685 million ATI Programme budget 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 industrial research projects, you could get funding for your eligible project costs of:

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

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

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