UK-Israel Eureka Bilateral Collaborative R&D: Round 2

Key Features

UK registered organisations can apply for a share of up to £2 million to develop collaborative research and development projects focussed on industrial research and development with Israel. This funding is from Innovate UK.

Programme:     Innovate UK

Award:     Share of up to £2 million

Opens: 5th Jun 2023

Closes: 13th Sep 2023

! This scheme is now closed

Overview

This competition is for UK businesses that want to apply to the UK-Israel Globalstars Eureka competition. Please visit the Eureka call for the proposals web page if you are not a UK applicant.

Innovate UK, part of UK Research and Innovation, is investing up to £2 million to fund collaborative research and development (CR&D) projects focused on industrial research with Innovation Israel.

Scope

The UK and Israel are jointly funding this competition under the EUREKA framework. The aim of this competition is to support business led collaborative, research and development (CR&D) projects resulting in new products, industrial processes or services. Projects must be innovative, involve a technological risk and target large global markets.

Your collaborative R&D proposal must demonstrate:

  • a clear game-changing or disruptive innovative idea leading to new products, processes or services
  • a strong and deliverable business plan that addresses and documents market potential and needs
  • sound, practical financial plans and timelines
  • good value for money, which will always be a consideration in Innovate UK funding decisions
  • a clear, evidence-based plan to deliver significant economic impact, return on investment (ROI) and growth through commercialisation, as soon as possible after project completion
  • clear, considerable potential to significantly benefit the UK economy or national productivity
  • the benefit of participants from the countries working together and how this adds value
  • a clear definition of where intellectual property (IP) can be used and shared between the participants and countries
  • a clear route to market within 2 to 3 years of project completion

Eligibility

UK applicants can apply for total grant of up to £300,000 for each project participant.

Your project must:

  • be collaborative
  • involve at least one UK business of any size and one eligible Israeli organisation
  • last between 12 months and 24 months

The start date depends on the national funding procedures of the Eureka members involved in the selected projects. The earliest start date will be by 1 May 2024.

Under current restrictions, this competition will not fund any procurement, commercial, business development or supply chain activity with any Russian or Belarusian entity as lead, partner or subcontractor. This includes any goods or services originating from a Russian or Belarusian source.

Organisations from other Eureka member states may also participate provided they arrange their own funding. The project must meet the eligibility participation criteria of UK and Israeli organisations.

Eureka terminology and roles

The terminology differs between Eureka and Innovate UK. In the Innovate UK application the ‘project lead’ is responsible for the entire project but Eureka uses the term ‘main participant’. For partners in the collaboration Eureka uses ‘other participants’.

Even if the project lead is from a participating Eureka member other than the UK, the UK registered partners can still claim funding from Innovate UK. These collaborations must include at least one UK registered SME.

The UK registered partners in your Eureka project must nominate one business, of any size, to start an Innovate UK application. We refer to them as the ‘lead organisation’ and the person they nominate to have overall responsibility as the ‘lead applicant’.

The lead applicant has an overall view of the application and must:

  • start the application
  • monitor the partners’ application progress
  • make sure all UK partners complete their parts of the application
  • click submit once the application is complete

The UK lead applicant must collaborate with at least one Israeli organisation participating in the competition. It must be a separate legal entity, not linked to the UK partners.

Overall Eureka project team

The organisations from participating Eureka members must meet the funding and eligibility conditions of their respective national funding bodies. These will be published on the Eureka call for proposals web page when this competition opens. These organisations must apply through their own funding bodies and not through the Innovation Funding Service.

Each partner must carry out the majority of their funded work within the Eureka member from which they receive funding, for example the UK for Innovate UK funding.

There must be a genuine collaboration. No more than 70% of the total eligible project costs can be claimed by a single partner or by all partners from a single participating Eureka member collectively.

The UK lead applicant can also collaborate with other UK registered organisations.

Subcontractors are allowed in this competition but they must not account for more than 20% of the UK partners’ total eligible costs. Subcontractors can be from anywhere in the UK. Where subcontractors are non-UK based, please justify why you are unable to use a UK alternative.

Innovate UK would expect subcontractor costs to be justified and appropriate to the total eligible project costs.

A non-grant claiming UK partner cannot lead on a project.

Your collaboration can include organisations from Eureka members that are not participating in this funding competition provided:

  • they have secured full funding elsewhere
  • you describe in your application why and how they will be involved and where they have secured financing from

A UK business can only lead or collaborate on one application.

research organisations can collaborate in any number of applications.

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

Exclusions

We will not fund projects that:

  • work on non-civilian technologies
  • are not in scope
  • do not meet Innovate UK’s eligibility criteria
  • do not submit all mandatory documentation
  • do not include at least one UK and one Israel based business

We cannot fund projects that are:

  • dependent on export performance, for example giving a subsidy to a baker on the condition that they export a certain quantity of bread to another country
  • dependent on domestic inputs usage, for example if they insisted that a baker use 50% UK flour in their product

Funding Costs

Innovate UK have allocated up to £2 million to fund UK partners innovation projects in this competition.

For industrial research projects, you could get funding for your eligible project costs of:

  • up to 70% if you are a micro or small business
  • up to 60% if you are a medium-sized business
  • up to 50% if you are a large business

Research participation

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

Interested in applying for this competition?

Book an appointment to speak to one of our advisors to discuss your eligibility to apply for this Grant Funding opportunity.