Innovate UK, part of UK Research and Innovation, will work with the Arts and Humanities Research Council (AHRC) and the Natural Environment Research Council (NERC) to invest up to £4 million in an innovation project. This will be to develop and demonstrate closed-loop recycling for the fashion and textile sector at scale. This is the initial activity of a £15 million UKRI Circular Fashion Programme.

The aim of this competition is to fund a research and development activity demonstrator. This will demonstrate new technologies, services, processes and business models capable of addressing the recycling and sorting challenges, as part of the UK’s fashion and textile sector and their direct supply chains.

Your proposal must be for a multi-disciplinary, collaborative, demonstration project.

Your project must support a demonstration of innovation at an industrially relevant scale, which will:

• increase the proportion of postconsumer fashion and textiles that are retained in a closed loop system
• increase the market value of processed post-consumer fashion and textiles
• reduce the proportion of post-consumer fashion and textiles which is sent to landfill, destroyed or exported
• develop and disseminate best practices in technologies, services, processes and business models to wider industry and policy makers

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

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Eligibility

Your project

Your project must:

• have a grant funding request between £3 million and £4 million
• start by 1 June 2023
• end by 31 March 2025
• last between 18 and 22 months
• carry out all of its project work in the UK
• intend to exploit the results from or in the UK

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.

If your project’s grant funding request or 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 your organisation must:

• be a UK registered business of any size
• collaborate with other UK registered organisations
• be or involve at least one grant claiming micro, small or medium-sized enterprise (SME)
• involve at least one academic institution (can be non grant claiming)
• involve at least one relevant trade association (can be non grant claiming)

More information on the different types of organisation can be found in our Funding rules.

Innovate UK encourage collaborations from the fashion and textile supply chain including:

• manufacturers
• retailers
• recyclers

Project team

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

• business of any size
• academic institution
• research and technology organisation (RTO)
• public sector organisation
• not for profit
• charity

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

A business can only lead on one application and cannot be included as a collaborator in any further application.

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

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