Funding competition Knowledge Asset Grant Fund: Expand
UK public sector organisations can apply for a share of up to £2.9 million to better exploit high-potential intangible assets. This funding is from the Knowledge Asset Grant Fund programme and delivered by the Government Office for Technology Transfer.
- Competition opens: Friday 15 July 2022
- Competition closes: Thursday 15 December 2022 11:00am
This competition is now closed.
Competition sections
Description
The Knowledge Asset Grant Fund (KAGF) programme is run by the Government Office for Technology Transfer (GOTT) and funded by the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy (BEIS).
The programme has £13 million funding available over 3 years with £2.9 million allocated to this financial year. Eligible UK public sector organisations can apply for a share of up to £5 million.
Innovate UK are administering this competition using their online competition platform on behalf of GOTT.
The aim of this competition is to support the identification and development of public sector knowledge assets, including their repurposing, commercialisation or expanded use. These assets may include intellectual property, data, innovation, software and knowhow. This competition is split into 3 strands:
- Knowledge Assets Grant Fund: Explore – for projects with costs of up to £25,000
- Knowledge Assets Grant Fund: Expand – for projects with costs of between £25,001 to £100,000 (this strand)
- Knowledge Assets Grant Fund: Extend – for projects with costs of between £100,001 to £250,000
It is your responsibility to ensure you are applying 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 does not meet the eligibility criteria.
In applying to this competition, you are entering into a competitive process. We strongly recommend watching our video explaining the eligibility and scope criteria, submitting your application, your finances, assessment and what happens if you are successful.
You can submit your application for assessment at any time before 11am UK time on the final submission date stated.
Submitted applications will be sent for assessment at 11am UK time on the following dates:
- 18 August 2022 - First submission
- 13 October 2022 – Second submission
- 15 December 2022 - Final submission date
Funding type
Grant
Project size
Your project’s grant funding request must be between £25,001 and £100,000.
Who can apply
Your project
Your project must:
- have a grant funding request between £25,001 and £100,000
- start after 1 October 2022
- last between 2 and 18 months
- end by 31 March 2024
- generate social, financial or economic benefits to the UK
- seek funding to develop a knowledge asset or assets that are majority owned by the UK government organisation applying for funding
All awards granted in 2022 must spend at least 50% of the funding awarded by 31 March 2023.
Awards granted in 2023, must spend at least 50% of the funding awarded by 30 June 2023.
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.
The Knowledge Asset Grant Fund support is for the development of existing assets. Assets do not have to be potentially revenue-generating to attract funding.
If you are unsure if your project is eligible, email GrantFund.GOTT@beis.gov.uk and the team can advise.
Lead organisation
To lead a project your organisation must be:
- a UK public sector organisation
- headed by an Accounting Officer responsible for upholding Managing Public Money (MPM)
- the primary beneficiary of any revenue-generating potential created by the funded activities
This includes but is not limited to:
- central UK government departments,
- non-departmental public bodies (NDPB)
- arm’s length bodies
- public sector research establishments (PSREs)
- NHS trusts
Your organisation must have approval from a Senior Civil Servant or equivalent, with the appropriate budget delegation from their accounting officer, up to and including the value of the grant being sought.
Academic institutions, cannot lead.
Subcontractors
Subcontractors are allowed in this competition.
All subcontractor costs must be justified as to why external expertise is needed and is appropriate to the total eligible project costs. It is your organisation’s responsibility to ensure compliance with public law and usual procurement practices. Any spend of the grant fund must follow the existing commercial arrangements of your organisation, and Crown Commercial rules.
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 unsuitable or unable to work with you..
Number of applications
A public sector organisation can lead on any number of applications for different projects.
Previous applications
You can use a previously submitted application to apply for this competition,
provided it has been improved based on the feedback you will have received.
We will not award funding if you or your organisation have failed to:
- complete and return a Knowledge Asset Grant final report following the conclusion of a project previously funded under the KAGF
- comply with grant terms and conditions for a project previously funded under KAGF
If others in your organisation have previously not met these criteria after being awarded funding, we reserve the right to not award funding until this is addressed.
Subsidy control (and State aid where applicable)
This competition provides funding in line with the UK's obligations and commitments to Subsidy Control. Further information about the UK Subsidy Control requirements can be found within the EU-UK Trade and Cooperation agreement and the subsequent guidance from the department of Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy (BEIS).
It is not possible to award funding to organisations that are considered to be in financial difficulty. We will conduct financial viability and eligibility tests to confirm this is not the case following the application stage.
EU State aid 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 Subsidy Control regime or the State aid rules, you should take independent legal advice. We are unable to advise on individual eligibility or legal obligations.
You must at all times make sure that the funding awarded to you is compliant with all current Subsidy Control legislation applicable in the United Kingdom.
This aims to regulate any advantage granted by a public sector body which threatens to, or actually distorts competition in the United Kingdom or any other country or countries.
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 £2.9 million has been allocated to fund innovation projects in this competition. Funding will be in the form of a grant.
Your project could get up to 100% funding for eligible project costs.
If successful, your award will be finalised pending receipt of a grant agreement. This must be signed by the Senior Officer Responsible with the appropriate delegation from their Accounting Officer, up to the full cost of your project or grant applied for, whichever is larger.
Your grant agreement will also commit you to apply trusted research principles in this project as a condition of grants offered by BEIS.
Your proposal
The aim of this competition is to support the identification and development of public sector knowledge assets which includes their repurposing, commercialisation or expanded use. These assets may include, intellectual property, data, innovation, software and knowhow.
Your proposal must test your Knowledge Asset’s potential for expanded or alternative use and, where relevant, provide the foundation for further investment.
The Knowledge Asset Grant Fund will support projects which are not suitable to secure investment from private sources. For example, this could be where funding is required to develop an asset to be used across different organisations within government which usually do not collaborate.
The funding can be used for discrete projects or may contribute to a specific stage in asset development.
You must have a clear output evidenced at the end of the funded activities, such as the progression to a new development stage, a report, or prototype
If you are unsure if your project is eligible, email GrantFund.GOTT@beis.gov.uk and the team can advise.
Specific themes
GOTT reserves the right to prioritise projects within specific themes where necessary. The programme themes will develop, and details will be available from GOTT.
Projects we will not fund
We are not funding:
- fundamental research and development, aimed at creating or developing new knowledge assets
- projects which have already advanced to the point where they could be considered an investable opportunity by private funding sources
- projects that are directly or indirectly requesting funding for an existing commercial entity that is not a government body
Funding will not be conditional 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
- 15 January 2022
- Final panel meeting
- 15 July 2022
- Recorded applicant briefing: Watch the recording
- 15 July 2022
- Competition opens
- 20 July 2022
- Online question and answer (Q&A) event: join at 3pm
- 18 August 2022
- First submission date
- 12 September 2022
- First panel meeting
- 26 September 2022
- First notification date
- 13 October 2022
- Second submission date
- 14 November 2022
- Second panel meeting
- 28 November 2022
- Second notification date
- 15 December 2022
- Final submission date
- 15 December 2022 11:00am
- Competition closes
Before you start
You must read the guidance on applying for a competition on the Innovation Funding Service before you start.
What we ask you
The application is split into 3 sections:
1. Project details.
2. Application questions.
3. Finances.
Assessments and panels
Assessment
Applications will first be assessed for eligibility by the Government Office for Technology Transfer (GOTT) team.
Eligible applications will then be sent to a team of external experts, who will carry out an initial assessment. Applications that do not meet the quality threshold at this stage will not go on to a panel assessment but will receive feedback.
Expand grant applications will be assessed by between 5 to 7 panellists.
Your application will be assessed based on:
- the knowledge assets potential benefit to the UK
- the knowledge assets likelihood of success
- fitness for purpose of your project plan
Before the panel
By the deadline stated in the invitation email, you must send a list of who will attend the panel assessment.
List of attendees
Up to 5 people from your project can attend. They must all be available on all published panel dates.
We are unable to reschedule slots once allocated.
Questions and answer (Q&A) session
For Expand applicants, the panel will spend up to 15 minutes asking questions about your proposal. The questions in this session will be based on your written application and the feedback from the initial assessment, which will be sent to you in advance.
Panel assessment
At the assessment panel, panellists will moderate their initial scores, based on your written application, informed by the views of the other panellists and the Q&A with you.
After your panel
The panellists will individually score your application and these will be averaged to provide your overall score. This score will supersede the one you received from initial assessment unless stated otherwise in the competition brief. We will notify you whether you have been successful or not by email and you will receive feedback based on comments from the panel within a week of notification.
1. Project details
This section provides information about your application and is not scored.
Your application will be managed in a secure and confidential manner, taking into account conflicts of interest and expertise that best match the competition.
Application team
Decide which people from your organisation will work with you on the project. Invite them to help complete the application.
Team members must each complete an Equality Diversity and Inclusion survey. The lead applicant must complete their survey to submit the application.
Application details
The lead applicant must complete this section. Give your project’s title, start date and duration.
Subsidy basis
Will the project, including any related activities you are seeking funding for, affect trade between Northern Ireland and the EU?
You and all your project partners must respond and mark this question as complete, before you can submit your application.
Public description
Describe your project in a way that you are happy to see published. Do not include any commercially sensitive information.
If we award your project funding, we reserve the right to publish the information in this description. This could happen before you start your project.
Your answer can be up to 200 words long.
2. Application questions
The assessors will score all your answers apart from questions 1 to 7. You will receive feedback for each scored question. Questions 5 and 6 are eligibility checked. If you do not meet the eligibility requirements, your application will not be sent for assessment.
You must answer all questions. Do not include any website addresses (URLs) in your answers.
Question 1. Applicant location (not scored)
You must state the name and full registered address of your organisation, any subcontractors working on the project, and the work location for the project if different to the registered address.
We are collecting this information to understand the geographical location of all applicants.
Question 2. Knowledge Asset Strategy Awareness (not scored)
Has your organisation a Senior Responsible Owner for knowledge asset management?
- Yes
- No
- In progress
- Not known
Question 3. Senior Responsible Owner for knowledge asset management (not scored)
If a Senior Responsible Owner for knowledge asset management has been appointed, you must provide their:
- name,
- job title
- email address
Describe how their involvement will support your project and its outcomes.
If no Senior Responsible Owner has been appointed or is not known type ‘Not Known’ in the text box.
Question 4. Additionality check (not scored)
Explain why your project cannot be funded by your organisation.
For example:
- limited financial resources in this financial year
- no financial resource allocated for this activity
- part or fully funding the project would take away funding from core activity
- BEIS funding would lever funding or resources from your organisation that otherwise would not happen
Your answer can be up to 150 words long.
Question 5. Conflicts of Interest (eligibility check)
Do you hereby declare that neither you nor any person involved in this project has any personal interest that could conflict with those of your organisation as grant applicant or those of the GOTT as funder of this project? Select:
- yes
- no
Question 6: Ownership and control of the assets (eligibility check)
You must describe:
- the assets that you are bringing into this project, for example protected IP, know-how, materials
- whether you own and control all the assets that you are bringing into this project
- who else has an ownership position or rights of control over the assets and why
- who will have ownership and control of all the results arising from this project and why
Your answer can be up to 400 words long.
Question 7. Project executive summary (not scored)
You must provide a brief executive summary for your proposal.
Explain:
- what the aims of your proposal are
- what the funding you are requesting will be used for
- how will you know if the project has been successful
Your answer can be up to 250 words long.
Question 8: Potential benefit to the UK
What is the problem to be addressed by use of your knowledge asset and how does it benefit the UK? Explain:
- the problem you are trying to address
- whether there is a market for this including whether you have conducted any user or market research
- how you will quantify the potential of your knowledge assets benefit to the UK
- whether you have identified any similar offering and its current limitations, including those close to market or in development
Your answer can be up to 400 words long.
Question 9: Outcomes and route to market
At the end of this project, how do you intend to continue to develop the assets and progress their exploitation?
Describe:
- your intended exploitation route, for example commercialisation through licensing or spin-out company formation; partnership or joint venture; open access and sharing with relevant public sector beneficiaries
- your understanding of your assets route to target markets or users, adopters and engagers,
- how you will undertake exploitation and which resources will you draw on internally and externally
- how the asset and the results from this grant will be managed by your organisation, including management of any IP rights
- how you will ensure that the benefits to the UK will be preserved throughout exploitation
- what the likely timescales are
Your answer can be up to 600 words long.
Question 10. Project team
Who is in the project team and what are their roles?
Describe:
- the roles, skills and experience of all members of the project team that are relevant to the approach you will be taking to deliver this project
- who in the team will have overall responsibility to manage your project and its delivery
- any external parties, including subcontractors, who you will work with and what their contribution will be
Your answer can be up to 400 words long.
How will you manage your project and any risks effectively?
Describe:
- the main work packages of your project, indicating the lead partner assigned to each and the total cost of each one
- your approach to project management, identifying any major tools and mechanisms you will use to get a successful and innovative project outcome
- how you intend to monitor and report on your project
- what the major risks are for your project and how you intend to manage them
Your answer can be up to 400 words long.
You must submit a project plan or Gantt chart as an appendix to support your answer. The plan must include clear timeframes for activities. In particular indicating what funding will be needed between September 2022 and end of March 2023 and what will be needed in the 2023/24 financial year.
It must be a PDF, up to 2 A4 pages long and no larger than 10MB in size. The font must be legible at 100% zoom.
3. Finances
Each organisation in your project must complete their own project costs, organisation details and funding details in the application.
For full details on what costs you can claim see our project costs guidance.Background and further information
Data sharing
This competition is jointly operated by Innovate UK, part of UK Research and Innovation and the Government Office for Technology Transfer (GOTT), part of BEIS (each an “agency”).
Your submitted application and any other information you provide at the application stage can be submitted to each agency on an individual basis for its storage, processing and use. Any relevant information produced during the application process concerning your application can be shared by one agency with the other, for its individual storage, processing and use.
This means that any information given to or generated by Innovate UK in respect of your application may be passed on to GOTT and vice versa.
Innovate UK and GOTT are directly accountable to you for their holding and processing of your information, including any personal data and confidential information. Data is held in accordance with their own policies. Accordingly, Innovate UK, and GOTT will be data controllers for personal data submitted during the application.
Innovate UK complies with the requirements of GDPR, and is committed to upholding the data protection principles, and protecting your information The Information Commissioner’s Office also has a useful guide for organisations, which outlines the data protection principles.Contact us
Innovate UK is committed to making support for applicants accessible to everyone.
We can provide help for applicants who face barriers when making an application. This might be as a result of a disability, neurodiversity or anything else that makes it difficult to use our services. We can also give help and make other reasonable adjustments for you if your application is successful.
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