The aim of this competition is to fund business led, collaborative, research and development (CR&D) projects. Projects must aim to deliver economic, knowledge and health benefit through industrial innovation and academic collaboration in the area of Digital Health for the UK and South Korea.

Projects must meet the stated requirements of MRC and Innovate UK as set out in this brief and that of Korea Health Industry Development Institute (KHIDI) as set out in their published brief.

Your project must demonstrate:

• a clear game changing or disruptive innovative idea linked to knowledge generation which contributes towards our understanding of human health conditions and leading to new products, processes or services
• improvement to the prevention, diagnosis, prognosis or treatment of significant health needs
• meaningful collaboration and transfer of knowledge between academic, RTO and business project partners
• a clear, evidence based business case that addresses and documents market potential and needs and that sets out the return on investment
• a strong and deliverable business that includes sound, practical financial plans and timelines
• good value for money which will always be a consideration in Innovate UK and MRC funding decisions
• clear potential to benefit the UK economy or national productivity
• the benefits to participants from the countries working together
• 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

UKRI is committed to ensuring that effective international collaboration in research and innovation takes place with integrity and within strong ethical frameworks. Trusted Research and Innovation (TRI) is a UKRI work programme designed to help protect all those working in our thriving and collaborative international sector by enabling partnerships to be as open as possible, and as secure as necessary. Our TRI Principles set out UKRI’s expectations of organisations funded by UKRI in relation to due diligence for international collaboration.

As funded projects will involve working with international partners, you are encouraged to read these principles and familiarise yourself with the resources referenced.

UKRI may request additional information regarding your plan to ensure safe international collaboration if your application is considered to be relevant to this policy.

Ethical Research

Your project must demonstrate its alignment with UKRI’s Ethical Research policies. Applicants must in particular adhere to UKRI’s ethical policies involving animal use in research.

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

Specific themes

Your project must focus on digital health. This may include digital tools, technologies, and solutions to improve health. These technologies include a wide range of devices, software, and platforms that leverage digital and mobile technologies.

Examples of areas of focus include:

• developing tools for improving analysis of medical imaging or data for clinical diagnosis, risk identification, patient stratification and disease monitoring
• data platforms for better integration of electronic health records, including opportunities for the use of data for further research
• tools to support point-of-care diagnosis and surveillance modelling
• digital tools to support management of diseases and delivery of psychological therapies

This list is not meant to be exhaustive.

Any digital health project must align with Innovate UK, MRC and KHIDI remits.

Research categories

We will fund industrial research projects as defined in the guidance on categories of research.

Projects we will not fund

We will not fund projects that:

• deliver any non-civilian applications
• deliver dual use intellectual property (IP)
• are not in scope
• do not meet Innovate UK’s eligibility criteria
• do not submit all mandatory documentation
• have a grant request of more than £750,000 from Innovate UK

We cannot fund projects that are:

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

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