Innovate UK, part of UK Research and Innovation, is working with the National Physical Laboratory (NPL) to invest up to £4.7 million in innovation projects that contribute to resilient time, frequency and synchronisation (TFS) and its dissemination and application.
The key areas for development are:
The aims of this competition are to:
The innovation in time resilience, dissemination and application competition has two strands:
Strand 1: demonstrator (this strand) - for projects undertaking late stage industrial research or experimental developmental projects.
Strand 2: feasibility - for projects undertaking early stage feasibility studies.
Your project must:
You must only include eligible project costs in your application.
To lead a project or work alone your organisation must:
Academic institutions and research organisations cannot lead or work alone.
To collaborate with the lead, your organisation must be one of the following UK registered:
Each partner organisation must be invited into the Innovation Funding Service by the lead to collaborate on a project. Once accepted, partners will be asked to login or to create an account and enter their own project costs into the Innovation Funding Service.
Your project can include partners that do not receive any of this competition’s funding, for example non-UK businesses. Their costs will count towards the total project costs.
Subcontractors are allowed in this competition.
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 one further application across both strands of the competition.
If a business is not leading an application, they can collaborate in up to two applications across both competition strands.
Research organisations can collaborate on any number of applications across both competition strands.
The aims of this competition are to:
Your project must deliver a demonstration for an innovative development and show a route to market.
Your project must be focused on one or more of these development areas relating to the dissemination of TFS:
We are looking for your projects to be scalable, geographically or across applications. Interoperability for international use is of particular interest.
Your project should lead to the following types of impact for the UK:
During the project, NPL can provide up to 12 hours of free consultancy and free access to highly accurate and traceable time and frequency signals. The access will come from four sites in the South East of England and one site in Scotland.
Each site has different types of signals and support facilities available. This will allow a variety of different projects with individual requirements to access facilities which can support their innovation.
The sites are in two broad categories:
Innovation nodes
The innovation nodes are sites that combine signal access with laboratory space and where traceable signals are available for R&D, testing and validation of applications. Three innovation nodes are being set up in partnership between NPL and respective host organisations and are available to successful applicants during their project:
1. The University of Surrey 5G/6G Innovation Centre provides access to a shared lab and is particularly suitable for telecommunications and network timing projects.
2. Cranfield University provides access to a shared lab and is particularly suitable for autonomy and transport related projects (to be available by March 2023).
3. The University of Strathclyde provides access to a dedicated lab and is particularly suitable for developments related to photonics, smart grids and fintech (to be available by March 2023).
Data centres
Two data centres in London and Reading allow signal connections via a cross-connect in a real-world delivery environment.
Projects that include one or more industry sectors are of interest.
Example sectors include but are not limited to:
Projects involving cross-sector technologies such as those contributing to telecommunication technologies or timing over digital networks are of particular interest.
Your project must focus on one or more of the following themes:
Resilience
Your project must contribute to the resilience of time dissemination in one or more of the following:
This could include, for example, developments relating to signal processing for time or frequency.
Distribution
Your project must enable end users to have improved access to time or frequency signals.
You must include one or more of the following:
For example, developments could include scalability to users at the edge of networks or to those currently without access.
There is also interest in developments relating to the application or extension of existing infrastructures such as that for communication.
Trust, assurance and security
Your project must contribute to the trust, assurance and security of time or frequency signals from the source to the end user, or a defined subset of this path.
You must include one or more of the following:
This could, for example, relate to audit and certification of time signals at various levels of accuracy or signal integrity when transferring time signals over distances and mediums. Algorithms and protocols, especially those that increase the integrity of timing signals, are also in scope.
Integration and processing of signals
Your project must contribute to one or more of the following:
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