Semiconductor industry skills and training

Innovate UK, part of UK Research and Innovation, will invest up to £5 million in innovation projects to address the skills shortages across the semiconductor industry

The aim of this competition is to create and deliver course content and materials that will support skills, talent and training across semiconductor manufacturing and supply chains.

The purpose of this is to build awareness of the semiconductor industry and fill key gaps in the UK’s workforce talent and training capabilities.

Opportunities could include but are not limited to:

• schools engagement
• apprenticeships and internships
• upskilling and reskilling of existing workforce
• technical courses and vocational training
• undergraduate, postgraduate and continuing professional development (CPD)
• new or improved process development
• creation of STEM ambassadors

Your proposal must identify or deliver a clear, game-changing intervention and address an identified industrial requirement or improvement. This must realistically and significantly meet and provide a long-term commitment to supporting the UK semiconductor industry.

Your proposal must align to the scope criteria for this competition.

This competition is split into 2 strands:

• Semiconductor industry skills and training (this strand)
• Semiconductor manufacturing scale-up – feasibility

It is your responsibility to ensure you submit your application to the correct strand for your project. You will not be able to transfer your application and it will not be sent for assessment if it is out of scope.

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

Eligibility

Your project must:

• have total project costs of no more than £500,000
• start by 1 August 2023
• end by 31 January 2025
• last between 12 and 18 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.

Lead organisation

To lead a project or work alone your organisation must:

• be a UK registered business of any size, research organisation, research and technology organisation (RTO), academic institution, charity, not-for-profit, or public sector organisation
• demonstrate clear industrial support for your application, covering a cross section of technologies and sectors
• work in, or have strong industrial ties with the UK semiconductor industry sector

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

If the lead organisation is not a business it must collaborate with at least 1 business of any size.

Funding

Up to £5 million has been allocated to fund projects in this semiconductors skills competition. Funding will be in the form of a grant.

If your organisation’s work on the project is commercial or economic, your funding request must not exceed the limits below. These limits apply even if your organisation normally acts non-economically but for the purpose of this project will be undertaking commercial or economic activity.

You could get funding for your eligible project costs of:

• up to 70% if you are a micro or small organisation
• up to 60% if you are a medium sized organisation
• up to 50% if you are a large organisation

For more information on company sizes, please refer to the company accounts guidance. This is a change from the EU definition unless you are applying under State aid.

If you are applying for an award funded under State aid Regulations, the definitions are set out in the European Commission Recommendation of 6 May 2003.

Scope

The aim of this competition is to create and deliver course content and materials that will support skills, talent and training across semiconductor manufacturing and supply chain. This is to build awareness of semiconductor manufacturing and application, filling key gaps in the UK’s workforce talent and training capabilities.

Your project must demonstrate:

• strong industrial links and a well defined industry focus
• an understanding and awareness of semiconductor industrial skills that are currently lacking and any future requirements to enable the workforce
• an innovative, ambitious, and realistic idea to meet a significant semiconductor skills or talent requirement
• planning for, and commitment to, creating and maintaining the resource on an ongoing basis for a minimum period of 3 years after the funded project completion
• that you will provide new training opportunities or skill resources not already available in the UK, a region or for a group of underrepresented people
• that it has the capacity and capability to be delivered successfully and on time
• value for money and evidence a return on investment, in terms of trained, upskilled and reskilled people

You can:

• produce content and material for outreach, engagement and learning purposes
• conduct semiconductor outreach and engagement exercises to individuals, academia, industry, and other groups
• deliver course material or facilitate the running of courses
• provide training or incentives for training to specific groups of underrepresented people or in specific training subjects
• create STEM ambassador programmes

Portfolio approach

We want to fund a variety of projects across different technologies, skill levels and location . We call this a portfolio approach.

Specific themes

Your project can focus on one or more of the following:

• defining and filling key skills gaps in the UK’s semiconductor manufacturing, research and supply chain workforce
• producing industry compatible training programs
• promoting skills in design for manufacture and assembly
• increasing interaction between academia or training establishments and industry to ensure skills streams for the future, including, apprenticeships, internships or sandwich courses
• delivering courses or practical training areas for example schools engagement, upskilling and reskilling of existing workforce, technical courses and vocational training, undergraduate, postgraduate and continuing professional development (CPD)
• improving the quality and capacity of existing training delivery
• outreach and engagement material focusing on semiconductors for all ages and levels in academia and industry
• supporting and promoting equality, diversity, and inclusion within semiconductor technology training, manufacturing, or research
• providing training or incentives for training to specific underrepresented groups of people or in specific training subjects

This list is not intended to be exhaustive.

Projects we will not fund

We are not funding projects that are:

• not related to semiconductor skills and training
• focused on semiconductor CR&D
• related to maintenance, servicing mechanics or aftermarket support
• related to printed circuit board (PCB) fabrication, PCB Assembly and test
• related to discrete passive devices, excluding on-chip integration

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

An online briefing event was held on 3rd March. Click here to watch the recording.