UK Grants - Driving the Electric Revolution: Building Talent for the Future 2

closed Opened: 11 March 2022 | Closes: 27 April 2022

Overview

UK registered organisations can apply for a share of up to £4.5 million for innovative skills, talent, and training projects for Power Electronics, Motors and Drives (PEMD). This funding is from the Driving the Electric Revolution challenge.

Description

Innovate UK’s Driving the Electric Revolution challenge, part of UK Research and Innovation, will invest up to £4.5 million in projects building talent for the future.

The aim of this competition is to create and deliver course content and materials that will support skills, talent and training across Power Electronics, Machines and Drives (PEMD) manufacturing and supply chains. The purpose of this is to build awareness of PEMD 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)

Your proposal must deliver a clear, game-changing intervention and address a clear industrial requirement. This must realistically and significantly meet and provide a long-term commitment to supporting the UK PEMD industry talent requirement.

The Building Talent for the Future 2 competition has two strands:

Driving the Electric Revolution – Building Talent for the Future 2 – for projects with costs up to £50,000 (this strand)
Driving the Electric Revolution – Building Talent for the Future 2 – full stage for projects invited following a successful expression of interest application

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

Funding type

Grant

Project size

Your total project costs must be no more than £50,000.

Who can apply

Your project

This competition is open to single applicants and collaborations.

Your project must:

have total project costs of no more than £50,000
start by 1 October 2022
last between 6 and 12 months
carry out its project work in the UK
intend to exploit the results from or in the UK

If your project’s total costs or duration falls outside of the eligibility criteria, you must provide justification by email to support@iuk.ukri.org at least 5 working days before the competition closes. Innovate UK will decide whether to approve your request. If you have not asked for approval or your request has not been approved by them you will be made ineligible and your application will not be sent for assessment.

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 PEMD sector

Project team

To collaborate with the lead, your organisation must be a UK registered:

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.

If collaborating, the lead and at least one other organisation must request funding by entering their costs during the application.

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 eligible project costs and must be listed in your application.

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 also provide a detailed rationale, evidence of the potential UK contractors you approached and the reasons why they were unable to work with you.

Innovate UK expects all subcontractor costs to be justified and appropriate to the total eligible project costs. They will not accept a cheaper cost as a sufficient reason to use an overseas subcontractor.

Number of applications

An organisation can only lead on one application but can be included as a collaborator in a further 2 applications across both strands of the competition.

If an organisation is not leading any application, it can collaborate in up to 3 applications across both strands of the competition.

If the number of applications your organisation wants to be involved in falls outside of our eligibility criteria, you must provide justification by email to support@iuk.ukri.org at least 5 working days before the competition closes. Innovate UK will decide whether to approve your request.

Previous applications

You can use a previously submitted application to apply for this competition.

Innovate UK will not award you funding if you have:

failed to exploit a previously funded project
an overdue independent accountant’s report
failed to comply with the terms and conditions of a grant or loan

Minimal financial assistance (and De minimis where applicable)

Grant funding in this competition is awarded as Minimal Financial assistance (MFA). This allows public bodies to award up to £315,000 to an enterprise in a 3 year rolling financial period.

In your application, you will be asked to declare previous funding received by you. This will form part of the financial checks ahead of Innovate UK making a formal grant offer.

To establish your eligibility, Innovate UK needs to check that our support added to the amount you have previously received does not exceed the limit of £315,000 in the ‘applicable period’.

The applicable period is made up of:

(a) the elapsed part of the current financial year

(b) the two financial years immediately preceding the current financial year

You must include any funding which you have received during the applicable period under:

Minimal financial assistance (previously referred to as Special Drawing Rights)
De minimis regulation

You do not need to include aid or subsidies which have been granted on a different basis (for example, aid award granted under the General Block Exemption Regulation).

Further information about the UK subsidy control requirements can be found in:

EU Commission rules now only apply in limited circumstances. Please see our general guidance to check if these rules apply to your organisation.

Further information

If you are unsure about your obligations under the UK’s International Obligations to Subsidy Control or the De minimis rules, you should take independent legal advice. Innovate UK cannot advise on individual eligibility or your legal obligations.

If there are any changes to the above requirements that mean Innovate UK needs to change the terms of this competition, Innovate UK will tell you as soon as possible.

Funding

Innovate UK have allocated up to £4.5 million to fund projects across both strands of the Building Talent for the Future 2 competition.

You can claim up to 100% of your total eligible costs, up to a limit of £50,000.

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 European Commission De minimis.

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

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