Funding

Funding Round-Up

Take a look at the latest funding competitions of relevance to organisations and academics working within the field of plastics.

Designing sustainable plastic solutions

Competition opens: Wednesday 3 June 2020
Competition closes: Wednesday 16 September 2020 12:00pm

Innovate UK, as part of UK Research and Innovation, will invest up to £800,000 to fund early-stage, human-centred design projects to reduce the harm that plastics have on our environment and to therefore increase productivity and growth of the UK economy. This funding is from the Plastic Research and Innovation Fund.

This aim of this competition is to help businesses to create designs for innovative goods, services or business models that will result in less persistent plastic waste entering our environment. This should be achieved by them obtaining a better understanding of relevant customer and user behaviours.

The Sustainable Innovation Fund: round 2 (de minimis)

Innovate UK, as part of UK Research and Innovation, is investing up to £26 million to fund single and collaborative research and development projects as part of The Sustainable Innovation Fund.

The aim of this competition is to help all sectors of the UK rebuild after the effects of COVID-19.

All projects must be led by a business. Proposals can only be from a single business.

Your project must:

have total eligible costs between £50,000 and £100,000
be ready to start by 1 November 2020
last between three and six months

To lead a project your organisation must:

be a UK registered business of any size
carry out its project work in the UK
be able to carry out project work under the current restrictions of COVID-19
intend to exploit the results from or in the UK

We have allocated up to £26 million to fund innovation projects in this competition.

You can receive funding of 100% of your total eligible project costs, up to £100,000.

Closing date: 2nd September 2020.

For more information, click here.

Manufacturing made smarter: digital supply chain, feasibility studies

UK registered businesses can apply for funding towards feasibility studies into digital technologies to transform supply chains in UK manufacturing. This funding is from the Industrial Strategy Challenge Fund.

Projects must help UK manufacturing supply chains develop digital technologies to become more efficient, productive, flexible, resilient. These must encourage the use of digital approaches to better integrate and optimise the performance of supply chains.

A series of workshops are being organised to explore the opportunities for using digital solutions to improve and re-engineer existing manufacturing supply chains, design new supply chain solutions and to help collaborators develop their applications for the Manufacturing Made Smarter supply chain competition.

31st July : Aerospace & Automotive – Register for the workshop here

Competition Details:

Opens: Monday 6 July
Closes: Wednesday 7 October

Online briefing event: recording

More information here

Manufacturing made smarter: digital supply chain, industrial research

Opens: Monday 6 July
Closes: Wednesday 7 October

UK registered businesses can apply for funding towards an industrial research project in digital technologies to transform supply chains in UK manufacturing. This funding is from the Industrial Strategy Challenge Fund.

Innovate UK, part of UK Research and Innovation, is to invest in 2 competitions to drive digital innovation in UK manufacturing supply chains. The funding is from the Industrial Strategy Challenge Fund (ISCF).

Your project must help UK manufacturing supply chains to develop digital technologies to become more efficient, productive, flexible, resilient. These must encourage the use of digital approaches to better integrate and optimise the performance of supply chains.

In this competition all projects awarded funding must upload evidence for each expenditure with every claim made. These might include invoices, time sheets, receipts or spreadsheets for capital usage. This is part of Innovate UK’s obligations under the Managing Public Money government handbook in relation to assurance, financial management and control.

View back the briefing recording here.

Knowledge Transfer Partnerships

Current KTP period: Close date: 07.10.20 (after this the next round will be available immediately, so don’t rush your application unnecessarily)

A Knowledge Transfer Partnership (KTP) links your organisation with one of the UK’s world-class knowledge bases (a university or research organisation) to power strategic innovation projects, embed expertise and drive commercial growth. needed to develop it, a Knowledge Transfer Partnership may be the answer. It creates a dynamic three-way collaboration – between a business or not for profit organisation, a UK university or research organisation, and a suitably qualified graduate – to help realise a strategic innovation project, bring about transformative change and embed new capability.

Innovate UK Smart Grants

Competition opens: Friday 28 August 2020
Competition closes: Wednesday 25 November 2020 11:00am

Smart is Innovate UK’s ‘Open grant funding’ programme.

Innovate UK, part of UK Research and Innovation, is investing up to £25 million in the best game-changing and commercially viable innovative or disruptive ideas. All proposals must be business focused.

Applications can come from any area of technology and be applied to any part of the economy, such as, but not exclusively:

the arts, design and media
creative industries
science or engineering

ISCF: Smart Sustainable Plastic Packaging

Part of the Industrial Strategy Challenge Fund Wave 3, this Challenge will develop a new generation of advanced and sustainable plastic packaging to reduce single-use plastics, increase recyclability and the amount of plastic packaging that is recycled and ultimately reduce the amount of plastic waste entering the environment. Government is prepared to invest up to £60 million in this Challenge from the Industrial Strategy Challenge Fund until 2024, with additional funding of up to £149 million from industry. The Smart Sustainable Plastic Packaging Challenge aims to establish the UK as a leading innovator in sustainable plastic packaging for consumer products, delivering cleaner growth across the supply chain, with a dramatic reduction in plastic waste entering the environment by 2025.

Your project must aim to:

help make the plastics packaging supply chain more circular
deliver the targets of the UK Plastics Pact
improve on current state-of-the-art plastic packaging, while still demonstrating practical and close-to-market solutions

Projects are welcomed across the following areas: materials; design; technology or process; business model or behaviour change. Your project must showcase close-to-market solutions that go beyond the current state-of-the-art and deliver a more circular economy for plastic packaging.

Future Plastic Packaging Solutions Competition

Planned to open in October 2020 the Future Plastic Packaging Solutions competition will see Innovate UK, part of UK Research and Innovation, invest up to £2 million in early-stage projects. This is part of the Smart Sustainable Plastic Packaging (SSPP) Challenge which aims to establish the UK as a leading innovator in smart and sustainable plastic packaging for consumer products. Its goals are to deliver cleaner growth across the supply chain, with a dramatic reduction in plastic waste entering the environment by 2025.

Wales’ Circular Economy Fund scope widened in response to COVID-19

WRAP Cymru has implemented changes to the £6.5m Circular Economy Fund – a Welsh Government initiative – in order to support more organisations more quickly. Capital grants from £6,000 (previously £25,000) to £750,000 are now available to facilitate the use of recycled materials in Welsh manufacturing, plus preparation for re-use, refurbishment and re-manufacturing activities in Wales. Visit the WRAP Cymru website to for full details and to apply.

Funding

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