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Net zero living: Pioneer places

Opens:
26/10/2022
Closes:
30/11/2022
Sectors:
General & Misc
All
Project Size:
£50,000 - £75,000

Innovate UK, part of UK Research and Innovation, will invest up to £2 million in innovation projects. These will be for local authorities and businesses to develop detailed local plans for innovative approaches to unlock non-technical systemic barriers to the delivery of net zero targets.

The aim of this competition is to support up to 30 places to develop a plan, with local authorities, to accelerate their transition to net zero. This will be achieved by developing innovative solutions to overcome barriers to implementation.

Your proposal must demonstrate a deep understanding of the opportunities from and non-technical systemic barriers to, delivery of net zero objectives in the area.

You must consider the whole net zero system in your area, including:

  • power
  • heat
  • mobility
  • product manufacture and usage

This must be across domestic, commercial and industrial users, as appropriate for the area. Links to other sectors are also welcome where relevant to the delivery of local net zero targets.

This is phase 1 of a potential 2 phase competition. Successful projects from phase 1 will be invited to apply to a phase 2 competition, for further funding to deliver their phase 1 proposals.

Phase 2 will fund up to 6 Pioneer places, with up to £8 million per project to deliver your innovative approach to support a fair and equitable transition to net zero in the UK.

In applying to this competition, you are entering into a competitive process. This competition closes at 11am UK time on the deadline stated.

Eligibility

Your project

Your project must:

  • have a total grant funding request between £50,000 and £75,000
  • start on 1 April 2023
  • end by 30 June 2023
  • last between 1 and 3 months
  • carry out all of its project work in the UK
  • intend to exploit the results from or in the UK
  • demonstrate alignment with current delivery activities within your existing Net Zero Transition Plans or Climate Action Plans
  • be based on existing experience of delivering systems based approaches to net zero
  • be scalable or replicable by other places within the UK
  • have an equality, diversity and inclusion (EDI) policy in place for the organisations involved

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:

  • be a UK Local Authority or a UK registered business of any size
  • collaborate with other UK registered organisations

The term local authority includes, county councils, district councils, unitary authorities, metropolitan districts and London boroughs. Regional collaborations coordinated through bodies such as Combined Authorities are also eligible.

Your project must include eligible partners in its collaboration with a minimum of one local authority and one UK registered business.

We welcome collaborative applications between multiple authorities.

Project team

To collaborate with the lead, your organisation must be one of the following:

A minimum of two grant claiming partners must be included to be an eligible collaboration and must include a minimum of one UK registered business and one Local Authority.

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.

The lead and at least one other organisation must claim funding when entering their costs during 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.

If subcontractors are to be used in your project, you must clearly outline in your application how any knowledge transfer will take place with the local authority.

Number of applications

A local authority or business can only lead on one application but can be included as a collaborator in a further single application.

If an organisation is not leading any application, it can collaborate in any number of applications.

The aim of this first phase competition is to fund up to 30 place based projects. These will develop detailed local plans for innovative approaches to unlock non-technical systemic barriers to the delivery of net zero targets.

Your plan must show how non-technical systemic barriers to rapidly accelerate progress to net zero targets in a defined place can be overcome.

You must explain how these places, local businesses and communities can thrive through that transition through innovative technologies and solutions. The removal of these barriers will enable innovative solutions to be adopted at scale and drive local economic growth.

Your proposal must demonstrate a deep understanding of the opportunities from any non-technical systemic barriers, to delivery of net zero objectives in the area.

You must consider the whole net zero system in your area, including:

  • power
  • heat
  • mobility
  • product manufacture and usage

This must be across domestic, commercial and industrial users, as appropriate for the area. Links to other sectors are also welcome where relevant to the delivery of local net zero targets.

You must show engagement with letters of support demonstrating senior level commitment from the local authority for your proposal.

Your application must outline your experiences and understanding of non-technical systemic barriers that are preventing effective delivery of net zero. You must include an outline of your potential innovative solutions to overcome these barriers.

On completion of your feasibility study you will be required to submit a final report. Your final report must:

  • align to and build on your current activities and experiences
  • deliver a detailed plan outlining how your consortium will unlock system barriers to achieve net zero at scale with a whole systems approach considering power, heat, mobility, product manufacture and usage
  • explain how you will demonstrate removal of critical barriers to delivering net zero in your area or region with a follow on phase
  • demonstrate a systems approach by considering whole system integration to enable more efficient whole system costs of provisions to transition to net zero
  • show how you will approach benefit identification to place, society, carbon emissions and net zero, including the size and scale of benefits to be targeted
  • describe which net zero tools you will be using
  • develop a resource plan explaining which partners and organisations you need to accomplish your goals for a potential second phase of this project including the timescales and delivery methods
  • develop a financial plan showing how your financial resources will be shared and split through the project lifetime
  • develop a sustainability plan for use beyond the funding and deliverables to continue improving and unlocking system barriers, this is a starting point – how will local authorities change their culture, long term plans and continue net zero transition into the future
  • describe your community engagement approach and plans for supporting all citizens through the transition including socio economic considerations as well as protected characteristics
  • explain how you will disseminate your learning from future trial outputs publicly on a regular basis, sharing any barriers encountered through the process and the solution you have applied
  • describe how you will aim for an open source data and sharing of information in an appropriate format for specific audience
  • consider how you will work with local authorities, the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy (BEIS), Ofgem and Code Administrators to implement your design
  • describe how your proposal will be scalable or replicable across the UK

Portfolio approach

We want to fund a variety of projects across different technologies, markets, technological maturities and research categories. We call this a portfolio approach.

Specific Themes

Your project must:

  • focus on a whole systems approach which considers power, heat, mobility, product manufacture and usage in domestic, commercial and industrial settings, as appropriate for your local area
  • identify and address non-technical systemic barriers, not infrastructure and technical barriers
  • clearly show how the proposal links to your ongoing delivery of your existing net zero plans and development in your area
  • show how you will work to align with other ongoing activities for example in financing and capability provision

Your proposal must address non-technical systemic barriers to delivery including but not limited to:

  • financing
  • capacity, capability and skills
  • consumer engagement and behaviour change
  • policy and regulation
  • system governance
  • common data standards for open source and interoperability
  • ability to influence strategic grid reinforcement
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