Open Call for Innovation – Cycle 3

Overview

The Open Call competition exists to offer suppliers the opportunity to present their ideas to defence and security stakeholders.

Your idea could be a concept, technology, product or service, and bids are sought at various levels of maturity. The Emerging Innovations category is for less mature innovations, and the Rapid Impact Innovations category is for innovations that are more developed.

The Open Call welcomes innovations that address defence or security challenges, and some innovations may solve challenges common to both.

Defence Requirements

Defence innovations can apply to any part of defence. Proposals of dual use to both defence and security are also welcomed.

Security Requirements

Security innovations are those which are targeted at preventing terrorism, disrupting serious and organised crime, or ensuring a safe and secure travel system.

Project Assessment

Your proposal will be assessed by subject matter experts across government against a common set of assessment criteria.

After an initial sifting process, experts from Dstl, MOD, the Home Office, the Department for Transport and wider UK government will assess your proposal.

Assessment criteria is available to view here.

Focus Areas

DASA have introduced focus areas that stakeholders across Government are particularly interested in welcoming; however, these areas are not a mandatory requirement to apply and the Open Call will always to welcome a full range of ideas and innovations. View the focus areas here.

For further information on this open call – please click here.

Defence and Security Accelerator DASA Open Call for Innovation: Emerging Innovations

Emerging innovations are viewed as those which will deliver a proof of concept at around Technology Readiness Level (TRL)  3 or 4. Proof of concept might include component and/or sub-system validation in laboratory-style environment. They do not fund feasibility studies. Projects are expected to start at TRL 2 or 3, which means the basic concept has been formulated and the underpinning technological principles observed at the outset.

Defence proposals are sought for projects lasting between 3 and 9 months and costing between £30,000 and £90,000. A total of £3 million is available from the Ministry of Defence research programme to fund these ideas.

For security proposals, no maximum time period or funding limit is specified, and all proposals will be considered. However, as a guide, it is expected that the majority of successful security projects will cost less than £150,000 and last between 3 and 12 months.

DASA Open Call for Innovation: Rapid Impact Innovation

In this category, there’s an expectation that proposals will be funded only if there is a strong customer requirement and capability need for the idea. Suppliers will need to ensure there is positive user interest in the idea before submitting a proposal. Proposals could be pre-sifted from the competition prior to full assessment if this is not apparent.

Suppliers are required to discuss their ideas with a DASA Innovation Partner before preparing a proposal.

For defence proposals, project funding requests of no more than £250,000 are welcomed, although lower cost proposals will be viewed favourably. Further, to demonstrate an impact for defence within 3 years, your project is expected to output a pilot of the capability as the main deliverable.

For security-related innovations, no funding limit is specified. However, as a guide, it is expected that the majority of successful security projects will cost less than £150,000. Funding is available from a variety of security departments across government, and proposals at TRL 4 and above are encouraged.

Funding Changes as of 25/03/2019

“With immediate effect, in the Emerging Innovations category, there will be a new guidance band of between £50,000 and £100,000. In the Rapid Impact category, there will be a new guidance band of between £100,000 – £350,000. The crucial word here is ‘guidance’, we need to work to a limit, but that limit will not stop us from developing a great idea if the cost of funding goes over that number.” – To read more about the changes – click here.