SBRI: Enhanced Clean Air Innovation Trials
Organisations can apply for a share of £800k to develop and trial pre-commercial innovations related to monitoring, mitigating or extracting air pollution.
Opportunity Details
When
Registration Opens
08/01/2024
Registration Closes
14/02/2024
Award
It is envisaged that this Phase 3 will see 8 to 12 contracts awarded. Between £50,000 and £100,000 inclusive of VAT, will be allocated for each contract. SBRI competitions involve procurement of R&D services at a fair market value and are not subject to subsidy control criteria that typically apply to grant funding.
Organisation
Innovate UK
This is a Small Business Research Initiative (SBRI) competition funded by Innovate UK as part of the Clean Air Strategic Priorities Fund Programme. This competition is funded through the UKRI Strategic Priorities Fund (SPF) Clean Air Programme. The SPF has been set up to build upon the vision of a ‘common research fund’ set out in Sir Paul Nurse’s independent review of the Research Councils.
The aim of the competition is to conduct extended field trials to evaluate and enhance any emerging technological solution in the clean air domain. The technology may be focused on monitoring, mitigating or extracting air pollution.
In applying to this phase 3 competition you are entering into a competitive process. This competition has a funding limit, so we may not be able to fund all the proposed projects. It may be the case that your project scores highly but we are still unable to fund it.
This phase 3 SBRI is a standalone competition open to any eligible applicants with existing pre-commercial innovations which might contribute to cleaner air. There have been no previous phases run in this competition. The reference to Phase 3 indicates that this competition will fund demonstration, testing and validation of existing technologies to support them to commercialisation. It will not provide funding for initial exploration of ideas or low technology readiness prototypes.
Any adoption and implementation of a solution from this competition would be subject to a separate, possibly competitive, procurement exercise. This competition does not cover the purchase of any solution.
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To lead a project, you can:
- be an organisation of any size
- work alone or with others from business, research organisations, research and technology organisations or the third sector as subcontractors (charities, social enterprises and voluntary groups)
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Your technology must relate to:
- monitoring
- mitigating
- extracting air pollution
Projects must:
- start on 1 May 2024
- end by 28 February 2025
- last between 8 and 10 months
Any projects selected for funding which involve animals will be asked to provide additional information on welfare and ethical considerations, as well as compliance with any relevant legislation as part of the project start-up process. This information will be reviewed before an award is made.
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The aim of the competition is to conduct extended field trials to evaluate and enhance emerging technological solution in the clean air domain. The technology may be focused on monitoring, mitigating or extracting air pollution.
This will lead to insight and feedback from future users and customers to make final adjustments to the product or service, that will lead to successful commercialisation.
In this Phase 3 you must further develop your existing innovation, deploying, testing and iterating in a real world or representative environment. You must work closely with potential users and customers, conducting the R&D to progress your project toward commercialisation.
Contracts will be given to successful applicants.
You must demonstrate a credible and practical route to market, so your application must include a plan to commercialise your results.
Your project must focus on one or more of the following:
- monitoring air pollutants or using data to create actionable insights to safeguard health
- extracting harmful pollution from the atmosphere
- mitigating harmful emissions at their source
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We will not fund projects that:
- do not have an existing Clean Air Tech innovation with a demonstrable need for real world research and testing ahead of commercialisation
- focus on tackling pollutants which have no demonstrated health impact
- generate more harmful pollutants than are removed
- result in a significant negative overall environmental impact
- duplicate other UK government or EU funded initiatives you have already been funded for
- duplicate existing innovation
- have existing commercial agreements to deliver the proposed solutions
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Innovate UK will hold a briefing webinar at 2:30pm on Wednesday 10 January 2024: click here to register for a place.
If you want help to find an organisation to work with, contact Innovate UK KTN’s Net Zero team or our Sensors team.