Funding competition Contracts for Innovation: AI tools for education

Organisations can apply for a share of £994,000, inclusive of VAT, to develop AI Education tools to support effective assessment of progress and feedback for pupils using an AI code library.

Competition opens: Monday 9 September 2024
Competition closes: Wednesday 9 October 2024 11:00am

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Description

This is a Contracts for Innovation competition funded by The Department for Education (DfE).

The aim of this competition is to develop tools which use generative AI to support teachers with assessing progress and providing feedback, known as formative assessment. These tools must support high quality education through evidence based teaching and learning approaches. These must align with relevant standards such as the National Curriculum or Early Years Foundation Stages (EYFS). Successful applicants will have access to a quality assured library of educational content and code optimised for use with large language models.

On average, teachers spend around 6 hours a week on marking, representing a significant proportion of teacher workloads. However, evidence from the Education Endowment Foundation (EEF) shows that individualised instruction and high quality feedback can significantly boost pupil progress. High quality AI tools have the potential to reduce the amount of time that teachers spend marking, whilst supporting effective feedback and tailored teaching which drive pupil progress.

There may be a potential for future funding to allow successful projects to undertake piloting, testing and validation of new or improved products, processes or services in environments representative of real-life operating conditions.

Only the successful applicants from this competition will be invited to potential future funding rounds.

In applying to this competition you are entering into a competitive process. This competition has a funding budget of up to £994,000, so we may not be able to fund all the proposed projects.

It may be the case that your project scores highly and receives positive comments from the assessors but we are still unable to fund it due to the portfolio approach we take. This means if two applications produce tools which address similar or identical areas of focus, for example, KS4 maths, we reserve the right to only award the highest scoring of the two and then proceed to award to the next highest scoring candidate.

Any adoption and implementation of a solution from this competition would be subject to a separate, possibly competitive, procurement exercise. This competition does not cover the purchase of any solution.

This competition closes at 11am UK time on the deadline stated in this Innovate UK competition brief. We cannot guarantee other government or third party sites will always show the correct competition information.

Funding type

Procurement

Project size

Projects can range in size from total costs of £50,000 up to £200,000, inclusive of VAT.

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 making reasonable adjustments, for people who have a disability or a long-term condition and face barriers applying to us.

You can contact us at any time to ask for guidance.

We recommend you contact us at least 15 working days before this competition’s closing date to allow us to put the most suitable support in place. The support we can provide may be limited if you contact us close to the competition deadline.

You can contact Innovate UK by email or call 0300 321 4357. Our phone lines are open from 9am to 12pm and 2pm to 5pm UK time, Monday to Friday (excluding bank holidays).

Who can apply

Text update 2 October 2024: We have added additional information on how to obtain a draft contract for this competition in the applicant section below.

Your project

Projects must:

start by 11 November 2024
end by 31 March 2025
last up to 5 months
have costs of between £50,000 and £200,000, inclusive of VAT

You must not start your project until your Contract has been approved by Department for Education (DfE).

Applicant

To lead a project, you can:

be an organisation of any size
work alone or with the subcontracted skills and expertise of others from business, research organisations, research and technology organisations, or the third sector (charities, social enterprises and voluntary groups)

Contracts will be awarded to a single legal entity only. The majority of the project work and key deliverables must be completed by the lead applicant and be carried out in the UK. Subcontractors can be used, but only for specialist skills.

Note: this competition was set up with grant terms and conditions rather than the terms of the draft contract. To obtain a copy of the correct draft contract for this Contracts for Innovation competition, email: Support@iuk.ukri.org.

Sanctions

This competition will not fund you, or provide any financial benefit to any individual or entities directly or indirectly involved with you, which would expose Innovate UK or any direct or indirect beneficiary of funding from the Department for Education to UK Sanctions. For example, through any procurement, commercial, business development or supply chain activity with any entity as lead, partner or subcontractor related to these countries, administrations and terrorist groups.

Use of animals in research and innovation

Innovate UK expects and supports the provision and safeguarding of welfare standards for animals used in research and innovation, according to best practice and up to date guidance.

Applicants must ensure that all of the proposed work within projects, both that in the UK and internationally, will comply with the UKRI guidance on the use of animals in research and innovation.

Any projects selected for funding which involve animals will be asked to provide additional information on welfare and ethical considerations, as well as compliance with any relevant legislation as part of the project start-up process. This information will be reviewed before an award is made.

Funding

A total of up to £994,000, inclusive of VAT, is allocated to this competition.

Contracts will be between £50,000 and £200,000, inclusive of VAT, for each project for up to 5 months.

The total funding available for the competition can change. The funders have the right to:

adjust the provisional funding allocations
apply a ‘portfolio’ approach

The contract is completed at the end of the competition, and the successful organisation is expected to pursue commercialisation of their solution.

Value Added Tax (VAT)

You must select whether you are VAT registered before entering your eligible project costs.

VAT is the responsibility of the invoicing business. We will not provide any further advice and suggest you seek independent advice from HMRC.

VAT registered

If you select you are VAT registered, you must enter your eligible project costs exclusive of VAT. As part of the application process VAT will be automatically calculated and added to your project cost total. Your total eligible project costs inclusive of VAT must not exceed £200,000.

Not VAT registered

If you select you are not VAT registered, you must enter your eligible project costs exclusive of VAT and no VAT will be added. You will not be able to increase total project costs to cover VAT later should you become VAT registered. Your total project costs must not exceed £200,000.

Research and development (R&D)

Your application must have at least 50% of the contract value attributed directly and exclusively to R&D services, including solution exploration and design. R&D can also include prototyping and field-testing the product or service. This lets you incorporate the results of your exploration and design and demonstrate that you can produce in quantity to acceptable quality standards.

R&D does not include:

commercial development activities such as quantity production
supply to establish commercial viability or to recover R&D costs
integration, customisation or incremental adaptations and improvements to existing products or processes

Subsidy control

Contracts for Innovation competitions involve procurement of R&D services at a fair market value and are not subject to subsidy control criteria that typically apply to grant funding.

Your project

These tools must support high quality education, aligned with the relevant standards. Successful applicants will have access to a quality assured library of educational content and code optimised for use with large language models.

Your project must:

1. Develop a formative assessment or feedback tool which is based on generative AI or large language model capability.

This must be based on free-text pupil or student work. This could include, for example, showing working in maths. However, assessment of multiple choice or single numerical answers are not in scope.

2. Develop a tool which is aligned with the relevant standards such as Early Years Foundation Stage, or National Curriculum in England if KS1-4, or 16-19 study programmes or T-Levels.

This must focus on evidence based best practice in teaching and learning. Your tools must support teachers to meet appropriate standards, such as the teachers standards.

In particular, all tools for KS1-4 must be aligned with the standards relating to subject, curriculum knowledge and expectations. The Initial Teacher Training and Early Career Framework sets out the evidence base for best practice that supports teachers to meet the standard.

You can refer to the relevant standards and guidance for your chosen project area by following the links in the Supporting Information section.

3. Develop a tool based on a quality assured library of educational content and code optimised for use with large language models.

The library will include but is not limited to, the National Curriculum in England, T-Levels, 16-19 programmes of study guidance and the EYFS. These will be available in optimised codified format. Quality assured systems prompts derived from evidence-based recommendations such as the Education Endowment Foundation guidance will also be available.

This proof of concept work demonstrates how codified content can improve educational performance of AI models

The library will also include pupil or student work with appropriate Intellectual Property (IP) permissions.

4. Develop a tool which supports teachers with assessing learning or providing feedback to students.

For EYFS projects your tool must support teachers with assessing learning and development.

5. Ensure that tools developed are safe, and compliant with relevant equality data protection and IP law.

6. Agree that any products developed will participate in any future DfE pilot approaches to monitoring AI safety in education.

By submitting this application you agree that any products developed will participate in any future DfE pilot approaches to monitoring AI safety in education.

Your project must support teachers to either assess learning, give effective feedback or both. This may include tools which produce feedback directly to pupils. Pupil or student facing tools must be designed to be aligned with human-led teaching practice, where pupil or student interaction is managed and overseen by a teacher.

Your project must focus on a stage from Early Years to 16 to 19 provision and can cover any subject from the specified list.

The Faculty Technical Report provides an example of how optimised content and code can support:

AI functionality aligned with the National Curriculum in England
good teaching and learning practice

Your project can involve the substantial adaptation or development of an existing tool where activity is at least 50% R&D, or development of an entirely new tool.

As part of the Contracts for Innovation conditions, successful applicants retain background and foreground IP, but the funder receives royalty-free rights to foreground IP, for example, the IP developed during the funded project in the Contracts for Innovation funding. This ensures the funding is not classified as a subsidy as both funder and successful applicants gain benefit from the funding.

We welcome proposals from applicants on how these royalty-free rights may be deployed for public good, including options such as discounts on products for a fixed period.

You must demonstrate a credible and practical route to market, so your application must include a plan to commercialise your results.

Contracts will be given to successful applicants.

Each organisation may submit a maximum of 1 application for this competition. The application must cover a specific education stage as selected in Question 1, and specific subject as indicated in Question 2 or Question 3. If you submit multiple applications, we will only consider your first application.

Portfolio approach

We want to fund a variety of projects across different technologies, markets, technological maturities, research categories and areas of focus such as Key Stages. We call this a portfolio approach.

Research categories

Prototype development

For this competition your project will develop a solution and produce a prototype solution in line with Technology Readiness Levels 6-7.

Only the successful applicants from this competition will be invited to potential future funding rounds.

Projects we will not fund

We will not fund projects that:

are not original in scope and duplicates someone else’s work
develop tools for high-stakes marking or summative assessment
develop tools intended for purely independent study by a pupil or student, with no teacher oversight
focus on incremental improvements to existing tools
do not include the use of generative AI or large language model capability
do not intend to utilise content from the content store
are not aligned with the relevant standards and guidance

9 September 2024

Online briefing event: watch the recording

9 September 2024

Competition opens

30 September 2024

Scope clarification questions to be submitted by 9am

9 October 2024 11:00am

Competition closes

28 October 2024

Applicants notified

7 November 2024

Contracts awarded

Before you start

Text update 2 October 2024: We have added additional information on how to obtain a draft contract for this competition under the paragraph below.

By submitting an application, you agree to the terms of the draft contract which is available once you start your application. The terms of the contract are non-negotiable and are included in the draft contract. We reserve the right to change the terms and conditions if necessary.

The final contract will include any milestones you have agreed with the funding authority and will be sent to you if your application is successful. The contract is binding once it is returned by you and signed by both parties.

When you start an application, you will be prompted to create an account as the lead applicant or sign in as a representative of your organisation. Using your account, you will be able to track your applications progress.

As the applicant you are responsible for:

collecting the information for your application
representing your organisation in leading the project if your application is successful

You will be able to invite colleagues from your organisation to contribute to the application.

What happens next

Innovate UK will send applications via secure means to the Department for Education (DfE).

A panel of evaluators selected by DfE will review and score your application. You will be notified of the outcome and feedback by email. Contracts for this competition will then be issued to all successful applicants.

DfE aims to inform you if successful on the 28 October 2024. We will then enter into a standstill period of 10 days before awarding contracts 07 November 2024. These dates may be subject to change.

What we will ask you

The application is split into three sections:

Project details.
Application questions.
Finances.

You must read the guidance on applying for a competition on the Innovation Funding Service before you start.

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

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

Accessibility and Inclusion

You can contact us at any time to ask for guidance.

You can contact Innovate UK by email or call 0300 321 4357. Our phone lines are open from 9am to 12pm and 2pm to 5pm UK time, Monday to Friday (excluding bank holidays).

Project details

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

Application details

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

Who made you aware of the competition?

Select a category to state who made you aware of the competition. You cannot choose more than one.

How long has your organisation been established for?

Select a category to state how long your organisation has been established for. You cannot choose more than one.

What is your organisation’s primary area focus?

Select a category to state your organisation’s primary focus area. You cannot choose more than one.

Project and scope summary

Please provide a short summary of your project.

Describe your project briefly. Be clear about what makes it innovative and how it relates to the scope of the competition. How does it tackle different aspects of the challenge and how will it provide an integrated solution?

Give details of the lead organisation. Before you submit, we expect you to have discussed your application within your organisation.

Your answer for this section can be up to 800 words long.

This section is not scored, but we will use it to decide whether the project fits the scope of the competition. If it does not, it may be rejected.

Public description

Please provide a brief description of your project. If your application is successful, we will publish this description. This can happen before you start your project. This question is mandatory, but we will not assess this content as part of your application.

Describe your project in a way that you are happy to see published. Do not include any commercially sensitive information. We have the right to amend the description before publication if necessary but will consult you about any changes.

Your answer can be up to 400 words long.

Applicant location

You must state the name of your organisation along with your full registered address.

You must also state the name and full registered address of any potential or confirmed subcontractors.

We are collecting this information to understand the geographical location of all participants of a project.

Your answer can be up to 400 words long.

2. Application questions

The assessors will score all of your questions except questions 1 to 6 which are not scored. You will receive feedback for each scored question.

Do not include any URLs in your answers unless we have explicitly requested a link to a video.

You must also complete the attached applicant declaration. This form will not be scored.

Question 1. Identify which key stage your project will support (not scored)

Identify which category you project will support from the list.

You must select one option:

Early years
KS1
KS2
KS3
KS4
16-19 education

Please note that we reserve the right to adopt a portfolio approach. This means if two applications produce tools which address similar or identical areas of focus e.g. KS4 maths, we reserve the right to only award the highest scoring of the two and then proceed to award to the next highest scoring candidate.

Question 2. Identify which Early Years subject your project will support if applicable (not scored)

Which subject will your project support?

If you choose to focus your project on Early Years you must select from the relevant subject in the following list.

If you are not focusing on Early Years, select ‘Not applicable’.

You must select one option:

communication and language
personal, social and emotional development
physical development
literacy
mathematics
understanding the world
expressive arts and design
not applicable

Question 3. Identify which Key Stage or 16-19 education subject your project will focus on if applicable (not scored)

Which subject will your project support?

If you choose to focus your project on Key Stage or 16-19 education you must select from the relevant subject in the following list.

If you are not focusing on Key Stage or 16-19 education, select ‘not applicable’.

You must select one option:

English
Mathematics
Science and technology
Art and Design
Citizenship
Computing
Design and Technology
Geography
History
Languages
Music
PE
Vocational
Religious Education (RE)
Relationships, Sex and Health Education (RSHE)
not applicable

Question 4. Animal testing (not scored)

Will your project involve any trials with animals or animal testing?

You must select one option:

We will only support innovation projects conducted to the highest standards of animal welfare.

Further information for proposals involving animal testing is available at the UKRI Good Research Hub and NC3R’s animal welfare guidance.

Question 5. Permits and licences (not scored)

Will you have the correct permits and licences in place to carry out your project?

We are unable to fund projects who do not have the correct permits or licences in place by your project start date.

You must select one option:

Yes
No
In process of being applied for
Not applicable

Question 6. DfE Applicant Declaration (not scored)

You must download and complete the attached DfE Applicant Declaration.

Once completed you must save the document as a PDF file and upload as part of your application.

You must complete this question by adding ‘Declaration attached’ into the text box provided.

Question 7. What is the potential for your tool to deliver positive outcomes? (20% weighting)

How does the project meet the challenge described in the competition scope?

What outcomes will your tools deliver?

You must

summarise the evidence based practice your tool aims to support
provide a description of your proposed idea or technology
include a description of the current state of development or readiness of the idea

Your answer can be up to 600 words long

You can submit a single appendix containing images and diagrams to support your answer. It must be a PDF no larger than 10MB. It can be up to two A4 pages but must be in 11 point font size.

This question will be scored against this assessment criterion: ‘How well does the proposal meet the challenge?’.

Question 8. Technical quality and feasibility (15% weighting)

What are the main technical challenges you are addressing? Who is the technical team? What expertise do they offer?

Explain:

how you will address the challenge
what the innovation is
the main technical deliverables
how you will use the quality assured library of educational content and code optimised for use with large language models
the research and development that will prove the scientific, environmental and commercial merit of the project
what might be achieved by deploying the innovation to address the selected challenge

Describe:

how each organisation has the skills, capabilities, and experience to deliver the intended benefits

how much of their time will be spent on the project

Your answer can be up to 800 words long

This question will be scored against this assessment criteria: ‘How valid is the technical approach? Does the applicant have the skills, capabilities and experience to deliver the intended benefits?’

Question 9. What is unique about your innovation? (10% weighting)

Are similar products currently available in the market?

How is your proposed project differentiated from them?

You must include details of:

any existing intellectual property (IP) and its significance to your freedom to operate
novel concepts you develop or employ
new approaches or technologies you use
new tools or technologies

Your answer can be up to 400 words long

This question will be scored against these assessment criteria: ‘How innovative is this project? How much does the project develop or employ novel concepts, approaches, methodologies, tools or technologies for this area?’.

Question 10. How would you manage delivery of your project (15% weighting)

Describe your project plan and identify the main milestones.

The plan for this competition must be comprehensive. The emphasis throughout should be on practicality.

Provide evidence that the technology works, can be made into a viable product and can achieve the proposed benefits.

You must:

describe resources that will be needed to deliver the project
describe what the main success criteria will be
identify the project management processes that will ensure you achieve the milestones
provide a clear plan for establishing technical and commercial feasibility
describe the main technical, commercial and environmental risks and what you will do to mitigate them
provide a clear plan for development of a working prototype

You must explain how you would handle any intellectual property (IP) issues which might arise during the project.

If you are working with subcontractors (specialist skills only), include details of how you will maintain freedom to operate and fulfil the IP requirements detailed in the contract.

Your answer can be up to 600 words long

You must upload a project plan or Gantt chart as an appendix. It must be a PDF no larger than 10MB. It can be up to two A4 pages but must be in 11 point font size.

Your milestones must:

be clear
be defined using SMART (specific, measurable, achievable, realistic and time-bound) criteria
be associated with the appropriate deliverables and payments
indicate your payment schedule by month

This question will be assessed against these assessment criteria:

does the proposal show a clear plan for establishing technical and commercial feasibility and the development of a working prototype
is there a clear management plan
what are the main technical, commercial, and environmental risks to the project’s success
how will these be effectively managed
are the milestones and evaluation procedures appropriate

Please note information from the finances section will be used to support the assessment of this question. Proposed milestones and associated payments stated in this section must match those entered in the finance summary on your application.

Question 11. Does your project provide good value for money? (20% weighting)

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

Describe:

the total costs inclusive of VAT (if applicable) you are requesting in terms of the project goals
the total costs in relation to the amount of activity
the amount of technological development involved
the cost of resource per working day, for example which people you are going to have and how much it costs per day
number of working days
how this project represents value for money for you and the taxpayer
your expected overall costs

Proposed costs stated in this section must match those entered in the finance summary.

All costs quoted must reflect actual costs at a ‘fair market value’ and not include profit.

Your answer can be up to 400 words long

You can submit a single appendix as a spreadsheet. It must be a PDF no larger than 10MB. It can be up to two A4 pages but must be in 11 point font size.

Full Economic Cost (FEC) calculations are not relevant for Contracts for Innovation competitions. Contracts for Innovation is a competitive process and applications will come from a variety of organisations. Whatever calculation you use to arrive at your total eligible project costs your application will be assessed against applications from other organisations. Bear this in mind when calculating your total eligible project costs. You can include overheads but remember that this is a competitive process.

The assessors are required to judge the application finances in terms of value for money. They will score your finances against this assessment criterion: ‘Are the budget and costs realistic, justified and appropriate for the aims and methods?

Please see the Contracts for Innovation: AI tools for education evaluation criteria for further guidance in relation to how your application will be assessed.

Please note information from the finances section will be used to support the assessment of this question. Proposed costs stated in this section must match those entered in the finance summary on your application.

Question 12. What is the commercial potential of your project? (10% weighting)

What is the commercial potential of your project? You must focus on your proposed customer’s needs.

Describe:

your project timescales
your projects commercial potential for a marketable product, process or service
your delivery plan
your expected route to market
the competitive advantage that your project has over existing or alternative technologies that meet market needs
any existing commercial relationships relevant to the project.

With the focus on your proposed customer’s needs, you can also mention the future commercial potential across the public or private sector and international markets.

Your Organisation will retain ownership of foreground Intellectual Property (IP) developed during the project. Challenge owners (DfE) will be granted free usage rights to foreground IP developed during the project. You must explain how this will help deliver benefits for schools in England.

We welcome proposals from applicants on how these royalty-free rights may be deployed for the public good, including options such as discounts on products for a fixed period.

Your answer can be up to 600 words long.

This question will be scored against these assessment criteria:

is there a clear commercial potential for a marketable product, process or service
is there a clear plan to deliver that and a clear route to market
how significant is the competitive advantage of this technology over existing technologies that meet the market’s needs

Question 13. What is the social value of your project? (5% weighting)

Describe how your organisation will influence its staff, suppliers, customers and communities through the delivery of the contract to tackle workforce inequality or create new businesses, new jobs, and new skills?

Activities can include:

educational attainment, including the promotion of training schemes which address skills gaps and result in recognised qualifications, including any existing or planned activities which will support the delivery of apprenticeships, traineeships and T-Level industry placement opportunities in your own organisation.

development and implementation of inclusive and accessible recruitment practices designed to attract good candidates from all backgrounds

strategies for the creation of employment opportunities for those facing barriers to employment

offering opportunities for work experience or similar activities or delivery of apprenticeships, traineeships and T-Level industry placement opportunities

offering a range of quality opportunities with routes for progression supporting educational attainment relevant to the contract for example training schemes addressing the skills gap

measures to ensure equality and accessibility without discrimination, to employment and workforce related opportunities on the contract and promote them to be fully accessible

Please see the following link for further information about our Social Value requirement, including the Social Value model: Procurement Policy Note 06/20 – taking account of social value in the award of central government contracts - GOV.UK (www.gov.uk)

Describe how you will achieve this?

Your answer can be up to 200 words long.

This question will be scored against this assessment criterion: ‘Is there a clear plan to deliver the social value commitment through the course of the contract?’

Question 14. What is the added environmental value of your project? (5% weighting)

Describe how your organisation will ensure that opportunities under the contract deliver additional environmental benefits and include working towards net zero.

You can include:

a timed action plan
use of metrics
tools or processes to gather data
reporting
transparency
feedback and improvement

Your answer can be up to 200 words long

This question will be scored against these assessment criteria:

is there a clear plan to meet net zero?
is there a clear plan to avoid emissions in delivery of the contract relative to alternative approaches and design approaches which minimise compute demands and their associated environmental impacts?
is there a clear plan to minimise the environmental impacts of end user activity for example, by minimising the duplication of compute-intensive tasks?

3. Finances

Enter your project costs, organisation details and funding details.

You must select whether you are VAT registered before entering your eligible project costs. We advise you answer the VAT registered question first before entering your eligible costs. Your total eligible project costs must not exceed £200,000.

VAT is the responsibility of the invoicing business. We will not provide any further advice and advise you to seek independent advice from HMRC.

Whatever calculation you use to arrive at your total eligible project costs your application will be assessed against applications from other organisations. Bear this in mind when calculating your total eligible project costs. You can include overheads but remember that this is a competitive process.

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

Assessment

Your responses to the marked questions will be independently assessed by DfE evaluators based on the content of your application, the response guidance, evaluation criteria and their skills or expertise relevant to your project. They will give a score and a reason for their score for each question they are assessing. Please note that you should not rely on the information in one section to be available to the marker of another section unless it is stated in the response guidance.

Cross referencing is not permitted to responses to any other questions within the submission. Any cross referencing to other questions within the submission will not be evaluated.

Once the evaluators have independently assessed your answers to the questions, we will arrange for the evaluators to meet. DfE commercial colleagues will facilitate the discussion. At this meeting, the evaluators will discuss the technical responses and review their scores and reasons for that score. The discussion will continue until they reach a consensus regarding the score, and reason for that score, for each question.

The following method will be applied to give your application a final score:

To provide a quality score, your marked questions will receive a score based on individual question evaluation criteria.

These scores will then be weighted and the weighted scores will be added together to create a score out of 100. Please note that each question has a different weighting adding up to a total of 100%.

Please note that there is a minimum score of 5 to meet our quality threshold in Question 11. Does your project provide good value for money? (20% weighting). If this section of the application does not meet this score, it will not be considered. Please see the evaluation criteria linked below.

2. The price score will be calculated by dividing the minimum funding amount by the funding requested, expressed as a percentage out of 100:

Price score = (£50,000 / funding requested) x 100

3. To calculate your overall final score, price and quality scores will be combined. The price score will be given a weighting of 15%, and the quality score will be given a weighting of 85%:

Final score = (Price score x 0.15) + (Quality score x 0.85)

The highest final scores will be used to determine which applications will receive funding.

In the event of a tie, the score on question 7 will be used to break the tie, then if necessary question 8.

Your submitted application will be assessed against these criteria:

Contracts for Innovation AI tools for education - evaluation criteria for applicants.pdf (opens in a new window)

Background and further information

About Contracts for Innovation competitions

Contracts for Innovation provides innovative solutions to challenges faced by the public sector. This can lead to better public services and improved efficiency and effectiveness.

The Contracts for Innovation programme:

supports economic growth and enables the development of innovative products and services through the public procurement of R&D
generates new business opportunities for companies
provides a route to market for new ideas
creates opportunities to work directly with the public sector

Contracts for Innovation competitions are open to all eligible organisations that can demonstrate a route to market for their solution. Under current regulations, Contracts for Innovation contracts are open to applications from organisations registered in the UK, European Union (EU) and the European Economic Area (EEA). Developments are 100% funded and focused on specific identified needs, increasing the chance of exploitation.

Contracts for Innovation encourages the creation and protection of new (intellectual property) IP. Applicants retain all the rights to both foreground and background IP but will be expected to grant certain royalty-free licences to the funder for use of the foreground IP.

Contracts for Innovation is a procurement of R&D services. If successful, you will receive a contract to deliver the proposed activity. Costs quoted must reflect actual costs at a ‘fair market value’ and not include profit.

You must submit an invoice for the work undertaken. All payments are made in arrears on submission of an invoice. Invoices must be submitted within 30 days of the end of each monitoring period for all completed milestones.

If you are VAT registered, your total costs are expected to include VAT that you would charge as a service provider. VAT is the responsibility of the invoicing business and applicants should ensure that VAT has been calculated correctly as part of their application. You will need to confirm your VAT status as part of the application process

Note – we are seeing a rise in double counting of VAT during the application process, making some applicants ineligible. To avoid this, it is important you input your costs minus VAT. VAT is added on by us in the Innovation Funding Service (IFS).

Suppliers for each project will be selected by an open competition process and retain the intellectual property generated from the project, with certain rights of use retained by the contracting authority. This is an excellent opportunity to establish an early customer for a new technology and to fund its development.

Early years foundation stage (EYFS) statutory framework - GOV.UK (www.gov.uk) and Development Matters - GOV.UK (www.gov.uk) provide the standards and guidance for EYFS.

Where relevant, for FE teachers tools should be aligned to the non-statutory Occupational Standard for Learning and Skills Teachers.

Briefing slides

Download briefing slides:

IFS Contracts for Innovation Applicant Briefing AI Tools for Education..pdf (opens in a new window)

If your application is successful

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 as per the applicant declaration.

You must respond to any requests Department for Education (DfE) has sent for additional information to avoid any delays.

Failure to respond may result in your offer being withdrawn.

Your contract offer letter

Your contract offer letter will be sent to you via email.

We will then require successful applicants to register on DfE’s e-sourcing platform (Jaggaer) within 7 days. This will avoid any delays in processing payments. You may also be asked to register as a vendor on the DfE Finance System.

The process for invoicing and payments will be outlined in the finalised contract.

Security

If your application is successful, you will be required to complete DfE's standard supplier security questionnaire.

If your application is unsuccessful

You will be notified of the outcome of your application via email. The attached letter will provide feedback from evaluators.

Sometimes your application will have scored well, and you will receive positive comments from the assessors. You may be unsuccessful as your average score was not above the funding threshold or your project has not been selected under the portfolio approach if this is applied for this competition.

Support for SMEs from Innovate UK Business Growth

If you receive an award, you will be contacted about working with an innovation and growth specialist at Innovate UK Business Growth. 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 Innovate UK Business Growth, delivered by a knowledgeable and objective specialist near you.

Protecting your innovation

A Secure Innovation campaign has been developed to help founders and leaders of innovative startups protect their technology, competitive advantage, and reputation.

This was developed by UK’s National Protective Security Authority (NPSA) and the National Cyber Security Centre (NCSC).

Data sharing

This competition is jointly operated by Innovate UK and the Department for Education (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 the Department for Education and vice versa.

Innovate UK and the Department for Education 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 the Department for Education will be data controllers for personal data submitted during the application.

Innovate UK’s Privacy Policy

Innovate UK Business Connect Privacy Policy

Department for Education’s Personal information charter

Department for Education’s Data Protection Policy

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

Further help and guidance

If you want help to find an organisation to work with, contact the Innovate UK Business Connect.

If you have any questions about the scope requirements of this competition, email support@iuk.ukri.org. Please note that clarification questions relating to the scope of requirements or specification will be managed by DfE. Any emails will be directed to DfE for response. You can contact DfE directly via email to dorcas.marshall@education.gov.uk.

DfE will work with Innovate UK to answer your questions. DfE will collate all questions and publish them in a log on a regular basis. This log will be available via contracts finder. Clarification questions will be accepted until 9am on the 30th September. Final responses will be published by close of business on 2nd October. Please include the following reference in the subject line of your email: A-1008 - AI Tools for Education: competition.

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 UK time, Monday to Friday (excluding bank holidays).

Innovate UK or any of our partners will not tolerate abusive language in any written or verbal correspondence, applications, social media or any other form that might affect staff.

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