Primary funder name: Innovate UK

Closing date: 18 May 21

Full text:  Innovate UK, the Aerospace Technology Institute and the Department for Business and Energy and Industrial Strategy, under the National Aerospace Technology Exploitation Programme, invite applications for their call on helping SMEs innovate in aerospace. This enables SMEs to develop innovative aerospace technologies to enhance their capabilities and increase their ability to win new business. Projects should: •demonstrate improvement in business productivity and competitiveness; •show clear benefit technically; •be able to pull through new technology or processes for use in current or future product or manufacturing process; •show clear benefit in creating or safeguarding jobs; •be able to enhance capabilities within the broader aerospace industry, as well as other sectors such as advanced manufacturing. Projects must have a credible route to market and have identified end users. Proposals must focus on one ore more of the UK aerospace technology strategy’s value streams. Projects must be collaborative and led by a UK registered SME. Applicants must plan to carry out the project work in the UK and intend to exploit the results from or in the UK. Any UK based institution can collaborate with the lead organisation, and the lead and at least one other organisation must claim funding. Project can include partners that do not receive any of this competition’s funding, such as overseas organisations. The programme primarily expects to support businesses that are new to R&D or are restarting R&D activity. The total budget is £2.5 million to support projects with total eligible costs worth between £100,000 and £300,000 for a duration of up to 18 months. Funding amount depends on the size of the organisation. UK registered businesses and research and technology organisations participating as business must provide match funding from entirely private sector sources.

Website: https://apply-for-innovation-funding.service.gov.uk/competition/750/overview

Disciplines: Aerospace Engineering & Avionics