Innovate UK, part of UK Research and Innovation, will invest up to £2.5 million from the Smart Sustainable Plastic Packaging Programme for early-stage and mid- stage projects.
This funding is from the Smart Sustainable Plastic Packaging (SSPP) Challenge which aims to establish the UK as a leading innovator in smart and sustainable plastic packaging for consumer products. Its goals are to deliver cleaner growth across the supply chain, with a dramatic reduction in plastic waste entering the environment by 2025.
Your project must aim to:
Your project must:
Your project must contribute to meeting the SSPP Challenge objectives, but we will fund projects that do not seek direct commercial output or financial value. Beneficial information and outputs delivered by such projects must be made freely available to UK stakeholders.
In applying to this competition, you are entering into a competitive process. The competition closes at 11 am UK time on the deadline stated.
Eligibility
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 or Belarusian entity as lead, partner or subcontractor. This includes any goods or services originating from a Russian or Belarusian source.
If your grant funding request or project duration falls outside of our eligibility criteria, you must provide justification by email to support@iuk.ukri.org at least 10 working days before the competition closes. We will decide whether to approve your request. If you have not requested approval or your application has not been approved by us, you will be made ineligible. Your application will then not be sent for assessment.
Lead organisation
To lead a project or work alone your organisation must:
If the lead organisation is an RTO it must collaborate with 2 businesses (one SME, and one business of any size).
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.
The lead and at least one other organisation must claim funding by entering their costs during the application.
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
A business, research and technology organisation (RTO), charity, not for profit or public sector organisation can only lead on one application but can be included as a collaborator in a further 2 applications.
If an organisation is not leading any application, it can collaborate in any number of applications.
The aim of this competition is to support feasibility studies, industrial research and experimental development, that addresses widely known problems in relation to plastic packaging for consumer products.
You must explain how you are innovating to address one or more of the UK Plastics Pact targets or overall objective of keeping plastic packaging out of the natural environment. The benefits of your new approach must be quantified in terms of the UK Plastic Pact targets where possible. Any environmental impacts must be described and justified.
Innovate UK will fund projects with either direct or indirect commercial outcomes for the partners.
For example, a project to improve understanding where the outputs would be made freely available would be in scope.
Your project must deliver a more circular plastic packaging value chain, with reduced environmental impacts, such as:
You must consider the likely environmental impacts to:
This competition is funded by the ISCF Smart Sustainable Plastic Packaging Fund (SSPP), the Challenge Director reserves the right to make the final decision regarding all project funding.
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 can focus on one or more of the following:
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