Innovate UK, part of UK Research and Innovation, will invest up to £1.5 million in innovation projects. This funding is part of the Net Zero Living programme.
The aim of this competition is to support ambitious, early stage digital focussed businesses in developing and delivering net zero in relation to challenges based on place. This must be done through data driven digital applications and by collaborating with potential customers and product users.
By accelerating their journey, we hope to create high growth businesses that will drive forwards digitalisation across the UK and globally in Net Zero sectors, creating jobs, growing a customer base and delivering customer value.
Your proposal must focus on two or more net zero challenges across:
Your digital product must be for domestic, commercial, industrial or local authority users, and must utilise a number of datasets relevant to place. Links to other sectors are also welcome, where relevant to the delivery of net zero.
You must collaborate with at least one potential customer or product user as part of the project.
In applying to this competition, you are entering into a competitive process. This competition closes at 11am UK time on the deadline stated.
Your project
Your project must:
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 and Belarusian entity as lead, partner or subcontractor. This includes any goods or services originating from a Russian and Belarusian source.
Lead organisation
To lead a project your organisation must:
More information on the different types of organisation can be found in our Funding rules.
Academic institutions cannot lead or work alone.
Project team
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.
To be an eligible collaboration, the lead and at least one other organisation must apply for funding when entering their costs into the application.
Non-funded partners
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
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.
Number of applications
An organisation can only lead on one application.
If an organisation is not leading an application, it can collaborate in any number of applications.
You cannot use a previously submitted application to apply for this competition.
We will not award you funding if you have:
This competition provides funding in line with the Subsidy Control Act 2022. Further information about the Subsidy requirements can be found within the Subsidy Control Act 2022 (legislation.gov.uk).
Innovate UK is unable to award organisations that are considered to be in financial difficulty. We will conduct financial viability and eligibility tests to confirm this is not the case following the application stage.
EU State aid rules now only apply in limited circumstances. Please see our general guidance to check if these rules apply to your organisation.
Further Information
If you are unsure about your obligations under the Subsidy Control Act 2022 or the State aid rules, you should take independent legal advice. We are unable to advise on individual eligibility or legal obligations.
You must always make sure that the funding awarded to you is compliant with all current Subsidy Control legislation applicable in the United Kingdom.
This aims to regulate any advantage granted by a public sector body which threatens to, or actually distorts competition in the United Kingdom or any other country or countries.
Up to £1.5 million has been allocated to fund innovation projects in this competition. Funding will be in the form of a grant.
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 industrial research projects, you could get funding for your eligible project costs of:
For more information on company sizes, please refer to the company accounts guidance.
If you are applying for an award funded under State aid Regulations, the definitions are set out in the European Commission Recommendation of 6 May 2003.
Research participation
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:
The aim of this competition is to support ambitious early stage growth businesses in developing and delivering net zero in relation to challenges based on place. This must be done through data driven digital applications and by collaborating with potential customers and product users.
Your proposal must focus on two or more net zero challenges across:
Your digital product must be for domestic, commercial, industrial or public authority users. Links to other sectors are also welcome where relevant to the delivery of net zero.
Your project must be a software or data lead solution.
It must make use of a number of open and shared data sets across a range of place relevant topics, including, but not limited to:
Your digital products or services must help places to accelerate their journey to net zero, and be replicable and scalable. You can focus on decision making tools, cost evaluation, reporting tools, prioritisation, or citizen engagement.
Your businesses is likely to be at least 2 years old. You may have a product being developed or available and have some customer engagement. You could be self funded or have early investors and you may have accessed some public funding in your growth journey to date.
This competition will fund projects that demonstrate and drive forwards best practice in data sharing in Net Zero sectors. Your project must apply best practice principles around data governance and sharing, and must demonstrate how you are adopting the Innovate UK Net Zero Living Data Guidance principles across the project. This includes taking a presumed open approach to data generated throughout the project.
Successful applicants will be provided with technical support in understanding and applying the Innovate UK Net Zero Living Data Guidance principles to your project and business. This will include at least 2 workshops to introduce the guidance and principles. It will also include 20 hours of dedicated technical support for each project from an Innovate UK delivery partner.
You must publish at least one end of project summary report giving an overview of what was undertaken, learned and achieved during the project. This report must be openly published and accessible. You are also expected to partake in at least 2 project ‘show and tell’ events across the project period.
Portfolio approach
We want to fund a variety of projects across different technologies, market segments and regions. We call this a portfolio approach.
We will fund industrial research projects, as defined in the guidance on categories of research.
We are not funding projects that are:
We cannot fund projects that are:
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