UK Aerospace Research and Technology Programme: collaborative feasibility studies round 1

Key Features

UK organisations can apply for a share of up to £8 million to carry out collaborative R&D, collaborative fast-track and feasibility projects to enhance the UK’s position in civil aerospace.

Programme:     ATI & Innovate UK

Award:     Share of £8m

Opens: 14th Jan 2019

Closes: 27th Feb 2019

! This scheme is now closed

Summary

The Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy (BEIS), through the Aerospace Technology Institute (ATI) and Innovate UK (part of UK Research and Innovation), will invest up to £8 million in research and technology projects. This is to deliver world leading aerospace technologies in the UK.

The aim of this funding is to support and speed up industry investment focused on supply chain companies. They are looking for high risk, high impact projects that demonstrate visionary, revolutionary and disruptive solutions to UK aerospace challenges.

Your proposal needs to fit with the UK Aerospace Technology Strategy or with one of ATI’s technical priority areas:

  • concept designs for radical or unconventional medium and long range aircraft
  • concept designs for urban and regional air vehicles, vertical take-off and landing (VTOL) and short take-off and landing (STOL)
  • requirements for a scalable hybrid electric power demonstrator facility
  • modelling of high-temperature superconducting electrical power machines
  • establishing the environmental impact of novel air vehicles
  • single crew or autonomous vehicle integration into controlled airspace

All proposals must be business-led and collaborative.

The competition is split into 3 strands. In this strand Innovate UK expect to fund a total of up to £2 million for collaborative feasibility studies.

The other 2 strands are collaborative research and development full stage and fast track. These are only open to applicants who were successful at previous stages.

Another round of this competition will open in 2020.

This competition closes at midday 12pm UK time.

 

Scope

The aim of this competition is to support and speed up industry investment focused on supply chain companies.

IUK are looking to fund a portfolio of projects, across a variety of technologies, markets and technological maturities, and will apply this portfolio approach across the 3 competitions: fast-track collaborative R&D, collaborative R&D and feasibility studies.

Specific themes

Your feasibility study project can focus on one or more of the following:

Concept designs for radical or unconventional medium and long range aircraft

Topics can include, for example:

  • top-level design of the aircraft geometry
  • means of propulsion
  • system integration
  • novel structural approaches

Concept designs for urban and regional air vehicles, vertical take-off and landing (VTOL) and short take-off and landing (STOL)

Topics can include, for example:

  • top-level design of the aircraft
  • means of propulsion
  • system integration
  • air vehicle safety
  • how the aircraft will be manufactured

Requirements for a scalable hybrid electric power demonstrator facility

Topics can include, for example:

  • identification of requirements for high power or voltage electrical power system integration facility for high voltage systems in the 1 to 2MW scale
  • evaluation of the requirements for a 500kW superconducting power system demonstration facility

Modelling of high-temperature superconducting electrical power machines

Topics can include, for example:

  • developing models of superconducting machine propulsors using the latest HTS materials
  • software models of high temperature superconducting (HTS) machines and advanced conventional electrical machines
  • comparison of existing advanced electrical machine designs for electric propulsion

Establishing the environmental Impact of novel air vehicles

Topics can include, for example:

  • likely impact on gaseous emissions such as CO2 and NOx
  • likely impact on particulate emissions
  • expected noise characteristics of electric machines and electrically powered rotors and fans
  • impact of congestion levels, both on air and on ground and overall energy consumption

Single crew or autonomous vehicle integration into controlled airspace

Topics can include, for example:

  • situational and positional awareness techniques
  • command, control and communication management
  • investigating regulatory safety cases

Projects Innovate UK will not fund;

  • projects which are primarily aligned to defence, space or other industrial sectors, but we will recognise dual-use technologies provided the primary application is in civil aerospace
  • projects that cover fundamental research or experimental development
  • projects with scope outside of the ATI’s Raising Ambition national aerospace strategy

Eligibility

State aid

Any UK business claiming funding must be eligible to receive state aid at the time we confirm you will be awarded funding. If you are unsure please take legal advice. For further information please see IUK’s general guidance.

Your project

Your project can have total eligible project costs of £255,000 to £500,000. Projects must start by August 2019 and end by August 2020. They can last up to 12 months.

Eligible organisations

To be eligible for funding you must:

  • be a UK based business, academic organisation, charity, public sector organisation or research and technology organisation (RTO)
  • plan to carry out an aerospace research or technology development project in the UK
  • address the specific requirements of the UK Aerospace Technology Strategy, ‘Raising Ambition’
  • sign up to the Aerospace Technology Institute (ATI) framework agreement
  • work in collaboration with other organisations to develop proposals and deliver projects

Lead organisation

To lead a project you must:

  • be a UK based business of any size
  • claim grant funding through this competition
  • work in collaboration with others

Collaborators

To collaborate you must be a UK-based:

  • business
  • research organisation
  • public sector organisation
  • charity

We encourage larger businesses, SMEs, universities and research and technology organisations to collaborate.

Multiple applications

Any one business can lead on one application and collaborate in a further 2 applications. If a business is not leading an application, they can be a collaborator in up to 3 applications.

A research organisation, charity or public sector organisation cannot lead on an application but can be a collaborator in any number of applications.

Partners with no funding

Projects can include partners that do not receive any funding (for example, non-UK businesses). Their costs will count towards the total project costs but they will not count as collaborators.

Resubmissions

If Innovate UK judges that your proposal is not materially different from your previous proposal, it is classed as a resubmission.

If they decide not to fund your proposal, you will be able to use it to apply once more.

Your reapplication can:

  • take into account the feedback received from the assessors
  • be for a later round of this competition or for another competition

Funding

There is up to £8 million available to fund collaborative research and development (R&D), fast-track collaborative R&D and feasibility studies projects in this competition.

For all projects, funding is limited to:

  • 50% for businesses (regardless of size)
  • 80% full economic costing (FEC) for academics
  • 100% grant for non-profit research and technology organisations, public sector organisations and charities

For all projects, no one project partner can incur more than 70% of the total project costs.

The research organisations in your consortium can share up to 30% of the total eligible project costs. If your consortium contains more than one research organisation, this maximum will be shared between them.

This competition provides state aid funding under the General Block Exemption Regulation. It is your responsibility to make sure that your organisation is eligible to receive state aid.