Medicines Manufacturing Skills: Centre of Excellence
UK registered organisations can apply for up to £5.3 million to establish and coordinate a skills centre of excellence (CoE) to tackle the skills gaps of the medicines manufacturing sector.
Opportunity Details
When
Registration Opens
26/09/2023
Registration Closes
22/11/2023
Award
Your project’s grant funding request can be up to £5.3 million. This can cover up to 70% of costs for businesses (depending on size) or up to 100% for academic and non-profit organisations.
Organisation
Innovate UK
Innovate UK, part of UK Research and Innovation, will work on behalf of the Department for Science, Innovation and Technology (DSIT) to invest up to £5.3 million to establish a skills centre of excellence (CoE).
The aim of this competition is to strengthen the UK’s medicines manufacturing skills and training ecosystem and increase the flow and retention of talent needed by the sector to grow.
This will be achieved by establishing a centre of excellence (CoE) to coordinate and work with the medicines manufacturing skills and training community to deliver appropriate training and skills provisions.
Your proposal must clearly demonstrate how the CoE will:
- coordinate the end-to-end talent pipeline to address multiple medicines manufacturing skills barriers and deliver sustainable training provision
- fill key gaps in the UK’s workforce talent and training capabilities
- support micro, small and medium enterprises (SMEs)
- work with and enable the existing skills and training marketplace
- build awareness of careers in medicines manufacturing
- take a national approach by joining up skills and training activity in medicines manufacturing and sharing best practice
- be maintained after the period of funding with a sustainable and financially viable business model
- have an active leadership role in equality, diversity and inclusion (EDI) for medicines manufacturing skills
- align with The Life Sciences Vision (2021)
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To lead a project or work alone your organisation must be a:
- business of any size
- academic institution
- research and technology organisation (RTO)
- charity
- not for profit
- public sector organisation
- research organisation
More information on the different types of organisation can be found in our Funding rules.
Project team
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)
- research organisation
A business/organisation can only lead on one application but can be included as a collaborator in two further applications.
If a business/organisation is not leading any application, it can collaborate in any number of applications.
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Your project must:
- start on 1 April 2024
- end by 31 March 2026
- have a grant funding request of up to £5.3 million
- last between 12 and 24 months
- carry out its project work in the UK
- intend to exploit the results from or in the UK
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The aim of this competition is to strengthen the UK’s medicines manufacturing skills and training ecosystem and increase the flow and retention of talent needed by the sector to grow.
This will be achieved by establishing a centre of excellence (CoE) to coordinate and work with the medicines manufacturing skills and training community to deliver appropriate training and skills provisions.
Your proposal must clearly demonstrate how the CoE will:
- coordinate the end-to-end talent pipeline to address multiple medicines manufacturing skills barriers and deliver sustainable training provision
- fill key gaps in the UK’s workforce talent and training capabilities
- support micro, small and medium enterprises (SMEs)
- work with and enable the existing skills and training marketplace
- build awareness of careers in medicines manufacturing
- take a national approach by joining up skills and training activity in medicines manufacturing and sharing best practice
- be maintained after the period of funding with a sustainable and financially viable business model
- have an active leadership role in equality, diversity and inclusion (EDI) for medicines manufacturing skills
- align with The Life Sciences Vision (2021)
Your proposal should also demonstrate how the CoE will:
- deliver schools or further education engagement
- deliver medicines manufacturing apprenticeships
- deliver industry ready talent from academia
- deliver improved accessibility and provision of professional or modular training
- deliver technical courses and vocational training in medicines manufacturing, including through undergraduate, postgraduate and continuing professional development
- attract and support those entering the sector from other sectors
- deliver upskilling and reskilling of the existing medicines manufacturing workforce
- develop or adopt a competency framework to ensure that all training providers meet a minimum standard
This list is not exhaustive, and we encourage you to identify other skills requirements or approaches to delivering the CoE in your project proposal.
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The Office for Life Science (as part of the Department for Science, Innovation and Technology) has identified some key capability and skills gaps within the medicines manufacturing industry through direct conversations and surveys.
You must explore and address as many of these themes as practically achievable:
- sustainable manufacturing
- regulatory skills
- bioprocessing
- biologics manufacturing
- cell and gene therapy manufacturing
- disruptive technologies
- digital and data
- automation and robotics
- cleanroom operations
- good manufacturing practice (GMP) operations
- quality control and quality assurance (QA/QC)
- equality, diversity and inclusion
This list is not exhaustive and we encourage you to identify other skills requirements within the industry in your project proposal.
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An online briefing will be held at 2:30pm on Thursday 28th September: click here for the joining link.
If you would like help to find a project partner, contact Innovate UK KTN’s Health team.