Design Foundations July 2022

Overview

Innovate UK, part of UK Research and Innovation, will invest up to £2 million in early-stage innovation projects that use people and planet centred design processes and expertise. This funding is from Innovate UK.

The aim of this competition is to help businesses develop new ideas that will deliver benefits for people and the planet, aligned with the UN’s Sustainable Development Goals. These can be for new or significantly improved products, services, places or business models.

The competition is for eligible organisations that want to test and improve the customer experience, social and environmental benefits of their early stage ideas, as well as generating new ideas.

Applications are encouraged from organisations that have not previously used people and planet centred design processes or expertise.

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

Project size

Your project’s total costs must be between £40,000 and £80,000.

Who can apply

Your project must:

have total costs between £40,000 and £80,000
start by 1 March 2023
end by 31 August 2023
last between 3 months and 6 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 entity as lead, partner or subcontractor. This includes any goods or services originating from a Russian source.

You will be made ineligible if you exceed the Minimal Financial Assistance limit. You must submit a complete declaration as part of your application.

Lead organisation

To lead a project or work alone your organisation must be a UK registered:

Project team

To collaborate with the lead, your organisation must be one of the following UK registered:

Your project team must include appropriate design expertise. Businesses without this capability are encouraged to collaborate with designers as project partners.

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 and enter their own project costs into the Innovation Funding Service.

To collaborate, the lead and at least one other organisation must claim funding by entering their costs during the application.

Your project can include UK registered partners that do not receive any of this competition’s funding. Their costs will count towards the total project costs.

Subcontractors

Subcontractors are allowed in this competition.

Subcontractor costs must not exceed 20% of the total project cost. If you need to spend a larger amount of the project cost with another organisation, for example a design organisation, they must be included as a project partner. The partner can claim funding to cover their costs as part of the application.

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 provide a detailed rationale, evidence of the potential UK contractors you approached and the reasons why they were unable to work with you. We will not accept a cheaper cost as a sufficient reason to use an overseas subcontractor.

All subcontractor costs must be justified and appropriate to the total project costs.

Number of applications

A business, charity, not for profit or public sector organisation can only lead on one application but can be included as a collaborator in a further 2 applications.

If an organisation is not leading any application, it can collaborate in any number of applications.

Previous applications

You cannot use a previously submitted application to apply for this competition.

They 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 grant terms and conditions

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, we need 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, and

(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 (such as an 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 their 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. We cannot advise on individual eligibility or your legal obligations.

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

Funding

Up to £2 million has been allocated to fund innovation projects in this competition. Funding will be in the form of a grant.

You can claim up to 100% grant funding for your eligible costs.

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 Comission 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.

Research participation

The research organisations undertaking non-economic activity as part of the project can share up to 50% of the total eligible project costs. If your consortium contains more than one research organisation undertaking non-economic activity, this maximum is shared between them.

Of that 50%, you could get funding for your eligible project costs of up to:

80% of full economic costs (FEC) if you are a Je-S registered institution such as an academic
100% of your project costs if you are an RTO, charity, not-for-profit organisation, public sector organisation or research organisation

Scope: Your proposal

It will help businesses gain experience of working with design processes and expertise.

Your project must generate new ideas or test and improve the customer experience, social and environmental benefits of your existing, early-stage ideas.

Your project must use a people and planet centred design approach to consider and enhance the value of your ideas. You must consider how to make your ideas more desirable and easy to adopt, so that their benefits can be realised.

You can learn more about appropriate design approaches by searching online for terms including planet centred design, life centred design, humanity centred design and design for planet.

Your project can include activities or work packages to:

understand market, social and environmental needs and customer behaviour
define problem statements and innovation opportunities
generate new or significantly improved ideas
create imagery, models, mock-ups or simulations to test ideas with customers and other stakeholders
use appropriate tools and models to evaluate the likely environmental and social impact of ideas
improve ideas in response to customer feedback and new discoveries
plan next steps to develop your ideas toward commercialisation
create design outputs to support investment pitches or funding applications

Your project can explore innovative ideas for physical or digital products, services, places or business models.

You are encouraged to respond to new discoveries made during the research and design process. This might include abandoning or rethinking your original ideas and changing the focus of planned R&D activity.

Portfolio approach

They want to fund a variety of projects across the Sustainable Development Goals detailed in specific themes. They call this a portfolio approach.

Specific Themes

Your project must focus on one or more of the following UN’s Sustainable Development Goals, which are:

No poverty
Zero hunger
Good health and wellbeing
Quality education
Gender equality
Clean water and sanitation
Affordable and clean energy
Decent work and economic growth
Industry, innovation and infrastructure
Reduced inequality
Sustainable cities and communities
Responsible consumption and production
Climate action
Life below water
Life on land
Peace, justice and strong institutions
Partnerships for the goals

Track grant Notes