Key Features
Organisations can apply for a share of £5.3 million, inclusive of VAT, across 3 themes, to develop a prototype and undertake field testing for up to 12 months. The focus for First of a Kind 2023 is cost efficiency and increasing value for money.
Programme: Department for Transport
Award: Share of up to £5.3 million
Opens: 14th Jun 2023
Closes: 26th Jul 2023
This is a Small Business Research Initiative (SBRI) competition funded by the Department for Transport (DfT).
The aim of the competition is to deliver high maturity demonstrations of innovations to the UK railways. Your project must support the overarching principle for FOAK 2023: cost efficiency and increasing value for money.
Delivering financial sustainability is a strategic objective of the long term strategy for rail and a pressing need for the sector, given a drop in revenue and increasing costs in the light of inflation.
Your project, regardless of priority theme, must demonstrate how you will improve value for money through increasing revenue or reducing costs whilst delivering positive outcomes related to this competitions theme which is: optimised train operations.
Your proposal must also provide robust evidence supported by a rail partner.
You must demonstrate how proven technologies can be integrated into a railway environment for the first time as ‘First of a Kind’ demonstrations. This competition aims to support innovative suppliers in preparation for market readiness.
You must describe your projects potential to be successfully exploited in a railway environment. We encourage you to discuss regulations, policy and other requirements with potential customer organisations before you submit your application.
Your project must:
You must provide evidence, showing your innovation can attract customers, get insurance, supply warranties, and attract financing.
Your evidence must show:
You must demonstrate potential benefits to passengers and customers, including:
Theme 4 – Tunnel Fit Out Installations
Innovation that allows rail organisations to increase operations efficiencies across tunnel fit out installations.
Project must focus on:
Theme 5 – Electric Multi-Purpose Vehicles Deployment
Innovation that allows electric multi-purpose vehicles (MPV) to be deployed faster and run more efficiently, based on tractive power, capacity, speed, cost efficiency, environmental impact and safety.
Solutions should support the delivery and transportation of rail systems materials to the installation work fronts along the constructed route by means of rail and road.
Innovations should consider MPVs capability for hauling and ease of deployment of large bulk materials such as slab track panels, cable drums, lineside equipment and personel.
MPVs will preferably need to have working battery life of 8 hours or more with a view to fast re-charge times. Vehicles will need to be future proofed in line with latest technology industry thinking.
Prototype development and evaluation
This can include prototyping, demonstrating, piloting, testing and validation of new or improved products, processes or services in environments representative of real-life operating conditions. The primary objective is to make further technical improvements on products, processes or services that are not substantially set.
Department for Transport will give preference to applications which:
You must also include an evaluation activity to identify the cost and benefits of your deliverables, and to support commercial uptake of your product.
You must present at an industry briefing event to highlight the benefits you can bring to the railways.
Demonstration Event
Your project must create a highly interactive and innovative demonstrator in a railway environment which will enable the most effective demonstration of the technology.
The most appropriate environment for this must be agreed with your rail industry partners. In their role as potential future customers, they will be well-placed to propose an appropriately representative railway environment.
This must be a railway environment where railway customers and industry representatives can witness the product as a compelling business proposition and must be as close to a live railway environment as possible.
The demonstration of your innovation is a key deliverable and must be included as part of your milestones.
You must work with your railway partners to achieve this, obtaining all required permissions and approvals. This must take the form of a launch event at, for example, a railway station or depot, attended by a range of industry stakeholders with potential interest in your product.
Example environments can include:
This list is not exhaustive, however, and others may be more appropriate to demonstrate certain types of technology.
Where required, the event may be online to access a wider selection of stakeholders. However, in this case the events must be augmented by evidence of your deployment in a railway environment.
You should de-risk all aspects of this before bidding into this competition to ensure that it can be delivered to the requirements of DfT and Innovate UK.
Evaluation Activity
You must complete an evaluation activity at the end of the project, measuring data to anticipate the commercial impact that adoption of the innovation will have on the railway network.
This evaluation must be specific to your project and evaluate the immediate effectiveness of your technology and the project direct outputs and activities.
This can include the evaluation of the:
This can be a measurement of the time taken to complete a task or the costs incurred before and after adoption of the technology. Alternatively, the activity might take the form of a survey of railway staff to solicit feedback and to anticipate cost benefit.
In all cases, the collection of objective data where possible is preferred over the collection of subjective feedback.
This information should be used to inform the future business case for your innovation. Involvement of individuals with expertise in designing such evaluation activities will benefit your application.
You must summarise your findings in your End of Project report. The report template will be provided to you at the beginning of your project.
Contracts will be given to successful applicants.
You must demonstrate a credible and practical route to market, so your application must include a plan to commercialise your results.
In this competition your project must focus on:
Theme 3 – Optimised Train Operations
In this theme we are seeking projects which will help improve train planning, decision making and services to support effective use of capacity and support train service delivery.
Possible examples include:
Note that although software (also known as applications) for mobile devices may be in scope, only a limited number of these projects will be supported.
Prototype development and evaluation
This can include prototyping, demonstrating, piloting, testing and validation of new or improved products, processes or services in environments representative of real-life operating conditions. The primary objective is to make further technical improvements on products, processes or services that are not substantially set.
Your project
Projects must:
Applicant
To lead a project, you must:
Applicants are welcome from all sectors. You can work alone or with other organisations as subcontractor.
Your project must involve:
These criteria can be met by a single organisation or up to three separate organisations.
You must also:
Department for Transport recommend you approach your potential integration partners as early as possible during the application process. This to ensure your industry relationships are well established before the competition closing date, so you are able to have their support from the beginning of the project.
Proposals into this competition must already be high maturity at Rail Industry Readiness level 5 or above. You must show evidence of this as part of your application.
You must include an organisation with railway expertise, such as train operating companies, a freight operator, rolling stock manufacturers or operators and infrastructure owners.
Department for Transport welcome projects that include an innovative start-up supply company that is already delivering in another sector.
This competition will not fund any procurement, commercial, business development or supply chain activity with any Russian or Belarusian entity as lead or subcontractor. This includes any goods or services originating from a Russian or Belarusian source.
Contracts will be awarded to a single legal entity only. However, if you can justify subcontracting components of the work, you can engage specialists or advisers. This work will still be the responsibility of the main contractor.
If you are awarded a contract, you will be invited to exhibit your project at the 2024 and 2025 Innovate UK annual rail exhibition, and Department for Transport also expect you to exhibit at the future events once your project is complete. Department for Transport will notify you of the date and location of the events, when available.
Department for Transport will provide the space and advise you of any technology you need to organise. You will also be able to lease equipment from the venue through us.
Previously funded projects
If you have previously been funded for the same or similar innovations, you will not be eligible for this competition. Applications for this competition need to be materially different from previously funded innovations. The decision of Innovate UK and DfT on this matter will be final.
Department for Transport will not fund projects that:
A total of up to £5.3 million, inclusive of VAT, has been allocated to the 3 themes below.
Department for Transport expect to fund between 10 and 20 projects across the 3 themes. Each project should last up to 12 months.
For theme 1 – Customer Experience – your project can range in size up to total costs of £300,000, inclusive of VAT.
For theme 2 – Reliable and Easy to Maintain Assets – your project can range in size up to total costs of £400,000, inclusive of VAT.
For theme 3 – Optimised Train Operations (this competition) – your project can range in size up to total costs of £400,000, inclusive of VAT.
The total DfT funding may be split between three themes in an approximate ratio of 40% for Customer Experience theme, 30% for Reliable and Easy to Maintain Assets theme and 30% for Optimised Train Operations theme.
The total funding available for the competition can change. The funders have the right to:
All awarded projects must spend 50% of the funding by 31 March 2024 and remaining 50% of the funding must be spent by 30 September 2024. This must be reflected in the eligible project cost breakdown and your milestones.
You must select which scope theme you are applying for. If a project covers more than one theme, choose one where most of the work is being undertaken.
It is your responsibility to ensure you submit your application to the correct theme for your project. You will not be able to transfer your application and it will not be sent for assessment if it is out of scope.
The contract is completed at the end of the competition, and the successful organisation is expected to pursue commercialisation of their solution.
Value Added Tax (VAT)
You must select whether you are VAT registered before entering your project costs.
VAT is the responsibility of the invoicing business. We will not provide any further advice and suggest you seek independent advice from HMRC.
VAT registered
If you select you are VAT registered, you must enter your project costs exclusive of VAT. As part of the application process VAT will be automatically calculated and added to your project cost total.
Your total project costs inclusive of VAT must not exceed
£400,000 for the Optimised Train Operations theme.
Not VAT registered
If you select you are not VAT registered, you must enter your project costs exclusive of VAT and no VAT will be added. You will not be able to increase total project costs to cover VAT later should you become VAT registered.
Your total project costs must not exceed
£400,000 for the Optimised Train Operations theme.
Research and development
Your application must have at least 50% of the contract value attributed directly and exclusively to R&D services, including solution exploration and design. R&D can also include prototyping and field-testing the product or service. This lets you incorporate the results of your exploration and design and demonstrate that you can produce in quantity to acceptable quality standards.
R&D does not include:
SBRI competitions involve procurement of R&D services at a fair market value and are not subject to subsidy control criteria that typically apply to grant funding.
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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