Funding competition Design Foundations: Repairability

UK registered organisations can apply for a share of up to £2 million for people centred and systemic design projects to inform and de-risk future R&D activity.

Competition opens: Monday 30 October 2023
Competition closes: Wednesday 10 January 2024 11:00am

This competition is now closed.

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Description

Innovate UK, part of UK Research and Innovation, will invest up to £2 million in innovation projects that use design methods.

Eligible organisations can apply for funding to use people centred and systemic design methods to:

improve existing innovative ideas
generate new ideas in response to a known need or opportunity
identify new opportunities to innovate and plan how to respond to them

The aim of this competition is to help businesses adopt people-centric and systemic design principles to lay the foundations for innovative ideas with the potential to deliver significant benefits. These can be ideas for new or significantly improved products, services, places, or business models.

All proposed projects must look at the need or opportunity from the perspective of the people involved. This is to ensure that proposed solutions are more desirable, beneficial and more likely to be adopted or to result in desirable behaviour change.

We encourage applicants to work with design experts to get the best results and to develop their own understanding and capabilities, even if they have not previously used such 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.

Funding type

Grant

Project size

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

Who can apply

Your project

Your project must:

have total costs of between £40,000 and £80,000
your grant request must match your total project costs
last between 3 months and 6 months
carry out its project work in the UK
intend to exploit the results from or in the UK
start on 1 June 2024
end by 30 November 2024

Projects must always start on the first of the month and this must be stated within your application. Your project start date will be reflected in your grant offer letter if you are successful.

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 or Belarusian entity as lead, partner or subcontractor. This includes any goods or services originating from a Russian or Belarusian 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 your organisation must:

be a UK registered business of any size
be a charity, not for profit or public sector organisation
collaborate with other UK registered organisations

Lead organisations must agree to contribute up to two days in support of Innovate UK activities to promote the use of design in business innovation, or to help us improve our products and services. This activity could include, for example, taking part in interviews, supporting the creation of case studies, or contributing to seminars or showcases. You will not be required to share confidential information or intellectual property.

More information on the different types of organisation can be found in our Funding rules.

Project team

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

business of any size
academic institution
charity
not-for-profit
public sector organisation
research and technology organisation (RTO)

Your project team must include appropriate expertise in design. Lead organisations without this capability are encouraged to work with designers as project partners or subcontractors.

Each partner organisation must be invited into the Innovation Funding Service (IFS) by the lead to collaborate on a project. Once partners have accepted the invitation, they will be asked to login or to create an account in IFS. They are responsible for entering their own project costs and completing their Project Impact questions in the application.

To be an eligible collaboration, the lead and at least one other organisation must apply for funding when entering their costs into the application.

Subcontractors

Subcontractors are allowed in this competition. The subcontractor’s costs must not exceed 75% of the total project cost.

Subcontractors can be from anywhere in the UK and you must select them through your usual procurement process.

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

Number of applications

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

Subcontractors can contribute to any number of applications. Lead organisations are advised to be mindful of their chosen subcontractors’ capacity to deliver should they be involved in more than one successful application.

Previous applications

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

We 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

You can make a maximum of 2 submissions to Innovate UK with any given proposal. If Innovate UK judges that your proposal is not materially different from your previous proposal, it will be counted towards this maximum.

If your application goes through to assessment and is unsuccessful, you can reapply with the same proposal once more.

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, for example, an aid award granted under the General Block Exemption Regulation.

Further information about the Subsidy Control Act 2022 requirements can be found in the Subsidy Control Act 2022 (legislation.gov.uk).

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 Subsidy Control Act 2022, you should take independent legal advice. We cannot advise on individual eligibility or your legal obligations.

Funding

We have allocated up to £2 million to fund innovation projects in this competition.

Your total project costs will be 100% funded. Total project costs detailed within your application must not exceed the maximum project size of £80,000 and must match the funding requested. If your total project costs do exceed the maximum then your application will be made ineligible.

Once a project has started, grant payments can be claimed monthly, and payments will be made in arrears based on eligible costs incurred and evidenced during that month.

You can make reference to any additional voluntary contribution in your application answers. It must not be detailed in the finance section.

For more information on company sizes, please refer to the Company accounts guidance.

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.

Your proposal

The focus of this competition is repairability, or Design for Repair (DfR), which is a design philosophy that aims to make products and services more easily repairable.

Your proposal must fall within one or more of the following categories:

Modularity and Accessibility: simplify the repair process and ensure that critical parts are not buried deep within the design
Standardisation and Compatibility: compatibility in all aspects including, industry standards and interoperability with other systems
Design for Durability: prioritise the use of high quality components and to ensure long-lasting value thorough testing
Extended Lifecycles and Lifecycle Assessment: consider adaptability to changing and emerging technologies, and support for legacy systems, evaluate environmental and societal impact for informed design decisions
Eco-Design and Circularity: promote sustainability, recyclability and reusability using design principles such as cradle-to-cradle (C2C) and biomimicry
Design for Resilience: increase resilience to external shocks and unexpected challenges, for example economic downturns and supply chain disruptions

In all cases, projects must explore opportunities and ideas from the perspective of the people who will be involved with or affected by them. Their experiences, motivations and behaviour must be allowed to shape the challenge and ideas to make sure that:

the most important and valuable problems and opportunities are being addressed
proposed solutions are more desirable, equitable and beneficial
new ideas are more likely to be adopted or promote positive changes in behaviour

Your project must include activities to identify and involve relevant stakeholders sufficiently early and at appropriate points throughout the project. Your team must reflect the characteristics, culture and lived experiences of the people they are designing for or take steps to bring those perspectives into the project in a meaningful way.

Any prototyping activity within your project must:

focus primarily on making discoveries about the quality of experience, the likelihood of the idea being adopted or its potential to promote positive changes in behaviour
be as quick and low cost as possible, and aim for the lowest level of fidelity or functionality necessary to get the required feedback
be used to share ideas and make discoveries early in the design process, so they can be acted on before it becomes prohibitively expensive or time consuming to do so

Successful applicants are encouraged to respond to feedback and new discoveries made during the research and design process. This might include abandoning or rethinking their original ideas and changing the focus of planned R&D activity. Innovate UK will consider well-justified project change requests submitted via a project’s allocated monitoring service provider.

Applications are encouraged from organisations that have not previously used people-centred or systemic design processes or expertise. We encourage applicants to work with design experts as partners or subcontractors to get the best results and to develop their own understanding and design capabilities.

Portfolio approach

We want to fund a variety of projects across different technologies, markets, technological maturities and research categories. We call this a portfolio approach.

We reserve the right to select a portfolio of winners, subject to meeting the quality threshold, that:

represent a range of themes, sectors, design applications and outputs
are located throughout the UK
represent a range of company sizes

Specific themes

The theme is repairability and is open to be applied in any product, service, place and business model, across all sectors.

Repairability is signifying an embedded and iterative optimisation looking toward change with long term benefits.

Projects we will not fund

We are not funding projects that:

are a one time or occasional repair
are the design of experiments, policies or research methodologies
do not follow best practice, people and planet centred design methods and principles as described in the competition scope
focus on the final finish or specification of an idea where fundamental design decisions have already been made, for example, where new customer feedback or discoveries will have little influence on the design outcome
seek only to validate technical feasibility or progress the technology readiness level of an idea, rather than improving the quality of the experience or its benefits for people or the planet
are likely to be harmful to people or the planet

We will also not fund projects that are proposals to create prototypes or demonstrators, in cases where:

the prototype requires a majority of the project cost or time to build
they are to be made fully functional
they are at considerable effort or cost
partial or simulated functionality would suffice
they are intended primarily to test technical feasibility or performance rather than the customer experience and benefits
they will only be shared with stakeholders late in the project, for example, with no time allowed to make changes in response to feedback

We cannot fund projects that:

involve primary production in fishery and aquaculture
involve primary production in agriculture
have activities relating to the purchase of road freight transport
are not allowed under De minimis regulation restrictions
are not eligible to receive Minimal Financial Assistance
are dependent on export performance, for example giving an award to a baker on the condition that they export a certain quantity of bread to another country
are dependent on domestic inputs usage, for example if we give an award to a baker on the condition that they use 50% UK flour in their product

30 October 2023: Competition opens
1 November 2023: Webinar briefing event: watch the recording
10 January 2024 11:00am: Competition closes
27 February 2024: Applicants notified

Before you start

Text update 5 January 2024: We have updated question 2 on the application question section in order to allow collaborative partners to submit their MFA declarations by email.

Text update 8 January 2024: We have added guidance for clarity that academics must enter their 80% FEC in the finance section.

Before submitting, it is the lead applicant’s responsibility to make sure:

that all the information provided in the application is correct
your proposal meets the eligibility and scope criteria
all sections of the application are marked as complete
that all partners have completed all assigned sections and accepted the terms and conditions (T&Cs)

You can reopen your application once submitted, up until the competition deadline. You must resubmit the application before the competition deadline.

What we ask you

The application is split into four sections:

Project details.
Application questions.
Finances.
Project Impact.

Accessibility and inclusion

We welcome and encourage applications from people of all backgrounds and are committed to making our application process accessible to everyone. This includes providing support, in the form of reasonable adjustments, for people who have a disability or a long-term condition and face barriers applying to us.

You must contact us as early as possible in the application process. We recommend contacting us at least 15 working days before the competition closing date to ensure we can provide you with the most suitable support possible.

You can contact us by emailing support@iuk.ukri.org or calling 0300 321 4357. Our phone lines are open from 9am to 12pm and 2pm to 5pm, Monday to Friday (excluding bank holidays).

1. Project details

This section provides background for your application and is not scored.

Application team

Decide which people from your organisation will work with you on the project and invite those people to help complete the application.

Application details

Give your project’s title, start date and duration.

Project summary

Describe your project briefly and be clear about what makes it innovative. We use this section to assign experts to assess your application.

Your answer can be up to 400 words long.

Public description

Describe your project in detail, and in a way that you are happy to see published. Do not include any commercially sensitive information. If we award your project funding, we will publish this description. This could happen before you start your project.

Your answer can be up to 400 words long.

Scope

Describe how your project fits the scope of the competition. If your project is not in scope it will not be sent for assessment. We will tell you the reason why.

Your answer can be up to 400 words long.

2. Application questions

The assessors will score all your answers apart from questions 1 and 2. You will receive feedback for each scored question. Find out more about how our assessors assess and how we select applications for funding.

You must answer all questions. Your answer to each question can be up to 400 words long. 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 and any partners or subcontractors working on your project.

We are collecting this information to understand the geographical location of all applicants.

Question 2. Minimal Financial Assistance declaration (not scored)

Each partner must download a declaration template. The template must be completed, declaring any funding received under Minimal Financial Assistance, previously referred to as Special Drawing Rights, or De minimis awards, (from any source of public funding) in the applicable period.

The lead partner must upload their completed declaration form as an appendix to this question.

The lead partner must write “declaration attached” in the question text box.

Each completed declaration must be uploaded as a separate appendix. It must be a PDF and the font must be legible at 100% zoom.

Each collaborative partner can also upload a completed declaration form to IFS, or you can submit by email to competitionenquiries@iuk.ukri.org once the application is submitted.

You must keep all documentation relating to Minimal Financial Assistance, previously referred to as Special Drawing Rights and other De minimis awards for a period of 6 years and be prepared to release it to any public funding body which requests it.

Question 3. Need or challenge

What is the business need, technological challenge, or market opportunity behind your innovation?

Explain:

the main motivation for the project
the business need, technological challenge or market opportunity
whether you have identified any similar innovation and its current limitations, including those close to market or in development
any work you have already done to respond to this need, for example if the project focuses on developing an existing capability or building a new one
the wider economic, social, environmental, cultural or political challenges which are influential in creating the opportunity, such as incoming regulations, using our Horizons tool if appropriate

Question 4. Approach and innovation

What approach will you take and where will the focus of the innovation be?

Explain:

how you will respond to the need, challenge or opportunity identified
how you will improve on existing products or services and their limitations
whether the innovation will focus on the application of existing technologies in new areas, the development of new technologies for existing areas or a totally disruptive approach
the freedom you have to operate
how this project fits with your current product, service lines or offerings
how it will make you more competitive
the nature of the outputs you expect from the project, for example, report, demonstrator, know-how, new process, product or service design, and how these will help you to target the need, challenge or opportunity identified

You can submit one appendix to support your answer. It can include diagrams and charts. It must be a PDF and can be up to 2 A4 pages long and no larger than 10MB in size. The font must be legible at 100% zoom.

Question 5. Team and resources

Who is in the project team and what are their roles?

Explain:

the roles, skills and experience of all members of the project team that are relevant to the approach you will be taking
the resources, equipment and facilities needed for the project and how you will access them
the details of any vital external parties, including sub-contractors, who you will need to work with to successfully carry out the project
the current relationships between project partners and how these will change as a result of the project
any roles you will need to recruit

You can submit one appendix with a short summary of the main people working on the project to support your answer. It must be a PDF and can be up to 4 A4 pages long and no larger than 10MB in size. The font must be legible at 100% zoom.

Question 6. Market awareness

What does the market you are targeting look like?

Describe:

the target markets for the project outcomes and any other potential markets, domestic, international or both
the size of the target markets for the project outcomes, backed up by references where available
the structure and dynamics of the target markets, including customer segmentation, together with predicted growth rates within clear timeframes
the target markets’ main supply or value chains and business models, and any barriers to entry that exist
the current UK position in targeting these markets
the size and main features of any other markets not already listed

If your project is highly innovative, where the market may be unexplored, describe or explain:

what the market’s size might be
how your project will try to explore the market’s potential

Question 7. Outcomes and route to market

How are you going to grow your business and increase your productivity in the long term as a result of the project?

Explain:

your current position in the markets and supply or value chains outlined, and whether you will be extending or establishing your market position
your target customers or end users, and the value to them, for example, why they would use or buy your product
your route to market
how you are going to profit from the innovation, including increased revenues or cost reduction
how the innovation will affect your productivity and growth, in both the short and the long term
how you will protect and exploit the outputs of the project, for example, through know-how, patenting, designs or changes to your business model
your strategy for targeting the other markets you have identified during or after the project

If there is any research organisation activity in the project, describe:

your plans to spread the project’s research outputs over a reasonable timescale
how you expect to use the results generated from the project in further research activities

Question 8. Wider impacts

What impact might this project have outside the project team?

Describe, and where possible, measure the economic benefits from the project such as productivity increases and import substitution, to:

external parties
customers
others in the supply chain
broader industry
the UK economy

Describe, and where possible, measure:

any expected impact on government priorities
any expected environmental impacts, either positive or negative
any expected regional impacts of the project

Describe any expected social impacts, either positive or negative on, for example:

quality of life
social inclusion or exclusion
jobs, such as safeguarding, creating, changing or displacing them
education
public empowerment
health and safety
regulations
diversity

Question 9. Project management

How will you manage the project effectively?

Explain:

the main work packages of the 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
the management reporting lines
your project plan in enough detail to identify any links or dependencies between work packages or milestones

You must submit a project plan or Gantt chart as an appendix to support your answer. It must be a PDF and can be up to 2 A4 pages long and no larger than 10MB in size. The font must be legible at 100% zoom.

Question 10. Risks

What are the main risks for this project?

Describe:

the main risks and uncertainties of the project, including the technical, commercial, managerial and environmental risks
how you will mitigate these risks
any project inputs that are critical to completion, such as resources, expertise, data sets
any output likely to be subject to regulatory requirements, certification, ethical issues and so on, and how you will manage this

You must submit a risk register as an appendix to support your answer. It must be a PDF and can be up to 2 A4 pages long and no larger than 10MB in size. The font must be legible at 100% zoom.

Question 11. Added value

How will this public funding help you to accelerate or enhance your approach to developing your project towards commercialisation? What impact would this award have on the organisations involved?

Explain:

what advantages public funding would offer your project, for example, appeal to investors, more partners, reduced risk or a faster route to market
the likely impact of the project outcomes on the organisations involved
what other routes of investment or means of support you have already approached and why they were not suitable
how any existing or potential investment or support will be used in conjunction with the grant funding
what your project would look like without public funding
how this project would change the R&D activities of all the organisations involved

Question 12. Costs and value for money

How much will the project cost and how does it represent value for money for the team and the taxpayer?

In terms of the project goals, explain:

the total eligible project costs
the grant you are requesting
how each partner will finance their contributions to the project
how this project represents value for money for you and the taxpayer
how it compares to what you would spend your money on otherwise
the balance of costs and grant across the project partners
any subcontractor costs and why they are critical to the project

3. Finances

Each organisation in your project must complete their own project costs, organisation details and funding details in the application.

Academic institutions must complete and upload a Je-S form that has a grant funding request of 80% of their full economic costs (FEC) and must match the grant requested.

Your projects total grant funding request must not exceed the maximum of £80,000 and must match the funding requested. If your grant funding request does exceed this maximum, then your application will be made ineligible.

You can make reference to any additional voluntary contribution in your application question answers but these must not be detailed in this finance section.

For full details on what costs you can claim see our project costs guidance. You can also view our Application Finances video.

4. Project Impact

This section is not scored but will provide background to your project.

Each partner must complete the Project Impact questions before being able to submit the application.

More information can be found in our Project Impact guidance and by viewing our Impact Management Framework video.

Background and further information

For further tools and resources, you can join Innovate UK KTN Design in Innovation network platform.

Data sharing

This competition is operated by Innovate UK.

Innovate UK is directly accountable to you for its holding and processing of your information, including any personal data and confidential information. Data is held in accordance with our own policies. Accordingly, Innovate UK will be data controllers for personal data submitted during the application.

Innovate UK’s Privacy Policy is accessible here. Innovate UK complies with the requirements of UK GDPR and the Data Protection Act 2018, and is committed to upholding data protection legislation, and protecting your information in accordance with data protection principles.

The Information Commissioner’s Office also has a useful guide for organisations, which outlines the data protection principles.

Find a project partner

If you want help to find a project partner, contact Innovate UK KTN.

Support for SMEs from Innovate UK EDGE

If you receive an award, you will be contacted about working with an innovation and growth specialist at Innovate UK EDGE. This service forms part of our funded offer to you.

These specialists focus on growing innovative businesses and ensuring that projects contribute to their growth. Working one-to-one, they can help you to identify your best strategy and harness world-class resources to grow and achieve scale.

We encourage you to engage with EDGE, delivered by a knowledgeable and objective specialist near you.

Assessment

Your application will be reviewed by up to 5 independent assessors based on the content of your application and their skills or expertise relevant to your project. All of the scores awarded will count towards the total score used to make the funding decision unless you are notified otherwise.

You can find out more about our assessment process in the General Guidance.

Your submitted application will be assessed against these criteria.

Assessor Guidance - Design Foundations Repairability.pdf (opens in a new window)

Next steps

If you are successful with this application, you will be asked to set up your project.

You must follow the unique link embedded in your email notification. This takes you to your Innovation Funding Service (IFS) Set Up portal, the tool that Innovate UK uses to gather necessary information before we can allow your project to begin.

You will need to provide:

the name and contact details of your project manager and project finance lead
a redacted copy of your bank details
a collaboration agreement
an exploitation plan

In order for us to process your claims, you must make sure you have a valid UK business bank account. It can take several weeks for a new account to be created if required. We recommend starting this process as early as possible to avoid any delays to your project start date.

The bank account which grant is to be paid into must:

be a business account in the same name as the organisation listed in IFS
be from a UK bank regulated by the Prudential Regulation Authority (PRA)
have a cheque and credit clearing facility

Online accounts are eligible as long as they meet the above criteria.

Innovate UK will accept most banking societies apart from:

Viva Wallet
Intesa Sanpaolo
Equals Money UK Limited

If you have any doubts that your bank account will not meet Innovate UK's funding criteria, you can use the sort code checker. If you input the sort code and find a tick next to the ‘BACS Direct Credit payments can be sent to this sort code’, this will give you an indication that the bank account you hold is acceptable.

Finance checks

We will carry out checks to make sure you are an established company with access to the funds necessary to complete the project.

You must check your IFS portal regularly and respond to any requests we have sent for additional information to avoid any delays.

Failure to complete project setup may result in your grant offer being withdrawn.

Your Grant offer letter (GOL)

Once you have successfully completed project setup, we will issue your GOL.

The GOL will be made available on your IFS portal. You will need to sign and upload this for us to approve. Once approved we will send you an email with permission to start your project on your confirmed start date.

You must not start your project before the date stated on your email and GOL. Any costs incurred before your agreed start date cannot be claimed as part of your grant.

If your GOL is approved on or before the fifteenth of the month it will be dated from the first of that month. If your GOL is approved after the fifteenth, it will be dated the first of the next month.

If your application is unsuccessful

If you are unsuccessful with your application this time, you can view feedback from the assessors. This will be available to you on your IFS portal following notification.

Your application may score well and receive positive feedback from the assessors but be unsuccessful. This can be because your average score has not reached the funding threshold for this competition, or your project has not been selected under the portfolio approach if applied to this competition.

Contact us

If you need more information about how to apply or you want to submit your application in Welsh, email support@iuk.ukri.org or call 0300 321 4357.

Our phone lines are open from 9am to 12pm and 2pm to 5pm, Monday to Friday (excluding bank holidays).

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