Sustainable bio-based materials and manufacture: feasibility study

Overview

Innovate UK, the Biotechnology and Biological Sciences Research Council (BBSRC) and the Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council (EPSRC), all part of UK Research and Innovation, will invest up to £2 million for this competition. The funding will support research and innovation projects to develop sustainable biomanufacturer based products.

Scope

The aim of this competition is to develop the design and delivery of new and disruptive sustainable biomanufacturing by 2050. Enabling the UK to be more globally competitive by supporting feasibility studies with collaborative development across different industries and sectors.

The need for change is driven by the three strategic imperatives:

climate change
supply chain resilience
the cost of energy

Your proposal must support organisations in biomanufacturing in the future to be:

net zero and resource efficient
resilient and responsive
technologically advanced and digital

Your project must address the challenge of developing innovations in sustainable biomanufacturing processes.

This can be by:

increasing the use of bio-based feedstocks
developing alternative bio-based chemical replacements
enhancing the sustainability profile of biotechnology processes
innovative use and re-use of renewable feedstocks
biotechnology based manufacture processes for sustainable and circular products

Specific Themes

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

improving extraction of existing bio-based feedstocks and optimising these processes
using biological systems for developing alternatives to traditional manufacturing processes including processing and catalysis for sustainability
the design and development of future advanced bio-products with improved or differentiated properties
the discovery of novel or optimisation of enzymes to whole organisms for biomanufacturing
securing value from waste streams
improving manufacturability and consistency at scale and progressing the development and adoption of biotechnology across multiple manufacturing industries and sectors

Eligibility

Your project must:

have total costs between £50,000 and £100,000
start by 1 July 2023
end by 31 December 2023
last between 3 and 6 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, Belarusian or Myanmar entity as lead, partner or subcontractor. This includes any goods or services originating from a Russian, Belarusian or Myanmar source.

To lead a project your organisation must be a UK registered:

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

If the lead organisation is an academic institution, research and technology organisation (RTO), charity, not for profit or public sector organisation it must collaborate with at least one business of any size.

Applications involving collaborations with academics, research organisations and micro, small or medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) are particularly encouraged to apply.

Subcontractors are allowed in this competition and are limited to no more than 20% of the project’s total eligible costs.

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.

A business can only lead on one application but can be included as a collaborator in a further 2 applications.

Exclusions

Innovate UK are not funding projects that are:

focused on enabling areas such as energy, regulations and policy, skills and relations
focused on value models
biopharmaceutical recombinant proteins for diagnosis or therapeutics, including protein, or nucleic acid-based vaccines or antimicrobials
microbiomes towards human health therapeutics
sustainable aviation fuel
alternate protein sources for example, food and beverage
carbon capture and storage technology, however the use of captured carbon as a feedstock is in scope

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 for this competition.

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 feasibility studies 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

The research organisations undertaking non-economic activity as part of the project can share up to 50% 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 50% 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

Back

R&D Tax Credits

Grant Funding

Other Services

Insights

Events