Funding competition EUREKA: Singapore open competition

UK businesses can apply for a share of up to £1 million to develop innovative proposals with Singapore and other EUREKA countries.

This competition is now closed.

Register and apply online

Competition sections

Description

EUREKA, in partnership with Enterprise Singapore, announce a Global Stars funding competition for research and development (R&D) projects under the EUREKA programme.

Innovate UK, part of UK Research and Innovation, is investing £1 million to fund UK businesses leading collaborative research and development (R&D) projects.

Projects should result in a new product, industrial process or service, be innovative and involve a technological risk.

Projects must be co-ordinated by a lead partner from the UK and a lead partner from Singapore. Partners from each additional country should also nominate a lead from that country.

All documents required by Innovate UK must be completed and uploaded to the Innovate UK secure file upload site by midday 12pm UK time on the deadline stated.

The EUREKA project application form must be completed and emailed by either lead applicant to globalstars@eurekanetwork.org by 10:59pm UK time (11:59pm Central European Summer Time) on the same deadline.

Funding type

Grant

Project size

Total eligible costs per project are expected to be between £100,000 and £1 million. This includes costs from all partners, from the UK and all other countries. The total grant available to the UK applicants is up to £350,000.

Who can apply

State aid

Any UK business claiming funding must be eligible to receive state aid at the time we confirm you will be awarded funding. If you are unsure please take legal advice. For further information see our general guidance.

Your project

Total eligible costs per project are expected to be between £100,000 and £1 million. The total grant available to the UK applicants is up to £350,000 per project.

Your project can last up to 3 years and is expected to start in March 2020. The start date is dependent on the national funding procedures of the countries involved in the selected projects.

Projects must be collaborative.

If your project’s total costs or duration fall outside of our eligibility criteria, you must provide justification by email to support@innovateuk.ukri.org at least 10 days before the competition closes. We will decide whether to approve your request.

UK lead applicant

To lead a project as a UK based organisation you must:

  • be a UK business, of any size
  • involve at least one UK based SME, unless the lead themselves is an SME
  • the UK SME in your consortium must incur at least half of the UK total eligible project costs. If your consortium contains more than one UK SME, this minimum is shared between them
  • collaborate with a lead organisation in Singapore
  • follow the full process correctly

Overseas partners

Organisations from other EUREKA countries must meet the funding and eligibility conditions of their respective countries. These will be provided in the competitions page on the EUREKA website, which will be published when this competition opens.

The consortium must include at least 2 businesses that are independent from each other:

  1. One business from Singapore.
  2. One business from one of the EUREKA member countries taking part in the project. As a minimum this would be the UK lead.

UK partners

In addition to the UK lead, the collaboration can also include other UK based businesses of any size and UK based research organisations.

Research organisations cannot lead or work alone. They must be able to show how they will exploit the results of the project to grow the wider sector in the UK.

Each partner must carry out the majority of their funded work within the country from which they receive funding, for example the UK for Innovate UK funding.

The UK research organisations in your consortium can share up to 30% of the UK total eligible project costs. If your consortium has more than one UK research organisation, this maximum is shared between them.

Projects are expected to have a balanced contribution of the total eligible project costs among the partners from the participating countries. No more than 75% can be claimed by any single partner or by all partners from a single participating country collectively.

The businesses in a consortium must be separate legal and non-linked entities. This is to ensure that projects encourage genuine international collaboration, not internal company research. Linked companies are considered a single entity under the parent company. They can specify which country they want to request funding from. Each company will receive funding from its respective national funding body.

Subcontractors

Your project can include subcontractors but they must not account for more than 20% of the UK total eligible costs.

Multiple applications

Any one UK business can lead on one application and collaborate in a further 2 applications.

A UK research organisation can be a collaborator in any number of applications.

Terminology

The terminology differs between EUREKA and Innovate UK. The lead applicant is responsible for the entire project but EUREKA uses the term ‘main participant’. For partners in the collaboration it uses ‘other participants’.

Previous applications

Resubmissions

You cannot use a resubmission to apply for this competition. A resubmission is a proposal Innovate UK judges as not materially different from one you have submitted before. It can be updated based on the assessors' feedback.

If you submit a new proposal this time you will be able to use it in no more than one future competition that allows resubmissions.

Failure to exploit

If you applied to a previous Innovate UK competition as the lead or sole organisation and were awarded funding by Innovate UK or UK Research and Innovation, but did not make a substantial effort to exploit that award, Innovate UK will award no more funding to you, in this or any other Innovate UK competition. You will not be able to contest this decision. Innovate UK will:

  • assess your efforts in the previous competition against your exploitation plan for that project
  • review the monitoring officers’ reports and any other relevant sources for evidence
  • document our decision, which will be made by 3 team members, and communicate it to you in writing

Previous projects

Under the terms of Innovate UK funding, you are required to submit an independent accountant’s report (IAR) with your final claim. If you or any organisation in your consortium failed to submit an IAR on a previous Innovate UK project, we will not award funding to you in this or any other competition until we have received the documents.

Funding

We have allocated up to £1 million to fund innovation projects in this competition.

The funding is awarded as a grant. In EUREKA competitions, Innovate UK can fund a proportion of the industrial research project costs. This proportion depends on the size of your business:

  • up to 70% if you are a micro or small business
  • up to 60% if you are a medium-sized business
  • up to 50% if you are a large business

Eligible project costs are defined in the project costs guidance.

This competition provides state aid funding under article 25 of the General Block Exemption Regulation (GBER). It is your responsibility to make sure that your organisation is eligible to receive state aid.

Your proposal

Your collaborative R&D proposal must demonstrate:

  • a clear game-changing and/or disruptive innovative idea leading to new products, processes or services
  • a strong and deliverable business plan that addresses (and documents) market potential and needs
  • sound, practical financial plans and timelines
  • good value for money which will always be a consideration in Innovate UK funding decisions
  • a clear, evidence based plan to deliver significant economic impact, return on investment (ROI) and growth through commercialisation, as soon as possible after project completion
  • clear, considerable potential to significantly benefit the UK economy and/or national productivity
  • the benefit of participants from the countries working together and how this adds value
  • a clear definitions of where intellectual property (IP) can be used and shared between the participants and countries
  • a clear route to market within 2 to 3 years of project completion
Innovate UK reserves the right to apply a ‘portfolio’ approach for the selection of projects in this competition.

Specific themes

The competition scope is open, however, applications are encouraged in:

  • medical technology
  • smart mobility and logistics
  • advanced manufacturing

Research categories

Your project must focus on industrial research but can include experimental development activities if we consider it appropriate. Please see the general guidance to help you decide which category your project fits in.

Projects we will not fund

We will not fund projects that:

  • have non-civilian applications
  • do not include at least one UK based business, one UK SME and one Singapore based business
  • do not meet Innovate UK’s eligibility criteria
  • do not submit all mandatory documentation
17 June 2019
Competition opens
1 July 2019
Online briefing event. Watch the recording
19 September 2019 12:00pm
Registration closes
26 September 2019
EUREKA submission deadline 10:59pm UK time
26 September 2019 12:00pm
Competition closes
19 December 2019
Applicants notified

Before you start

This is a summary of the application process. Before you apply you must read the full guidance for applicants for this competition to understand the full process.

EUREKA requirements

To complete the EUREKA process:

  • one of the lead applicants of the international consortium must download and complete the EUREKA project application form on behalf of the entire consortium
  • email the completed electronic form, including the required annexes, to globalstars@eurekanetwork.org before the submission deadline
  • make sure the email subject line is ‘Globalstars Singapore Call 2019’

UK requirements

The UK lead applicant must:

  • click the green register button above to register for the competition and FTP site
  • upload the completed Innovate UK application form and supporting documents to the secure FTP site

After the competition deadline Innovate UK will check your application is eligible. If you do not submit all required documentation your application will be ineligible.

More information about the application process for partner countries is on the EUREKA calls for projects website once the competition opens.

Background and further information

EUREKA is an intergovernmental network launched in 1985. Its aim is to support market-oriented R&D and innovation projects by industry, research centres and universities across all technological sectors. It is composed of 41 member states, including the European Union, represented by the European Commission, and 3 associated states:

  • Canada
  • South Africa
  • Chile

There is also a partner country, South Korea.

With its flexible and decentralised network, EUREKA offers project partners:

  • rapid access to skills and expertise across Europe
  • national public and private funding schemes

Extra help

If you want help to find a project collaborator, contact the Knowledge Transfer Network.

If you need help with the EUREKA project application form, contact EUREKA directly.

If you need more information on submitting to Innovate UK, email us at support@innovateuk.ukri.org or call the competition helpline on 0300 321 4357 between 9am and 5:30pm, Monday to Friday.

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