Engineering Biology Collaborative Research and Development Round 1

Innovate UK, part of UK Research and Innovation (UKRI), will invest up to £7 million in this Engineering Biology collaborative research and development (CR&D) competition. This competition is part of UKRI’s National Engineering Biology Programme (NEBP).

The aim of this competition is to deliver business led research and development (R&D) that will:

• lead to new Engineering Biology products, processes or services
• de-risk the adoption of new Engineering Biology technologies that offer high market potential.

Your proposal must align with one or more of the NEBP themes or focus on cross cutting technology or service development. The NEBP themes are:

• food systems
• biomedicine
• clean growth
• environmental solutions

Funding for this opportunity is subject to business case approval by the Department of Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy and HM Treasury.

Eligibility

Your project must:

• have total costs between £100,000 and £500,000
• start by 1 September 2023
• end by 28 February 2025
• last between 6 months and 18 months
• carry out all of its project work in the UK
• intend to exploit the results from or in the UK

To lead a project or work alone your organisation must be a UK registered business of any size.

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

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

A business can only lead on one application but can be included as a collaborator in a further 2 applications. Other businesses or organisations, if not leading an application, can collaborate in any number of applications.

Scope

The aim of this competition is to deliver business led research and development (R&D) that will:

• lead to new engineering biology products, processes or services
• de-risk the adoption of new Engineering Biology technologies that offer high market potential

The funding support will help to accelerate the development and adoption of engineering biology technologies and techniques and by doing so provide solutions to societal challenges.

For the purposes of this competition engineering biology refers to the:

• development or use of synthetic biology using engineering principals to design and fabricate biological components and systems
• adoption of synthetic biology in industrial processes or development of tools and technologies that support synthetic biology

Your proposal must clearly:

• demonstrate how your innovation relates to synthetic biology
• explain how your innovation fits with one of the specific themes for the competition

Your project can include:

• experimental evaluation
• prototyping
• product or service development planning
• demonstrations of utility and effectiveness
• demonstrations of safety or regulatory planning

We encourage you to collaborate with the UK research base and help to grow the UK’s Engineering Biology ecosystem.

Specific themes

Your project must focus on developing engineering biology technologies or apply engineering biology solutions to one or more of the National Engineering Biology Programme (NEBP) themes or focus on cross cutting technology or service development. The NEBP themes are:

• food systems
• clean growth
• environmental solutions
• biomedicine

We are not funding projects that are:

• fundamental research or feasibility studies
• focussed on a product that is already on the market
• conducted to anything less than the highest standards of animal welfare
• clinical trials or preclinical evaluation of therapeutics

An online briefing event will be held on Monday 6th February: details will appear here when available.

If you want help to find a project partner, contact Innovate UK KTN’s Engineering Biology team.