Funding competition EUREKA collaborative R&D: AI and quantum technologies

UK businesses can apply for a share of up to £1 million to develop AI and quantum technology or quantum sensing technologies together with organisations from EUREKA countries.

This competition is now closed.

Register and apply online

Competition sections

Description

Innovate UK, part of UK Research and Innovation, is investing up to £1 million to fund collaborative research and development (CR&D) projects focused on industrial research.

We will fund projects in artificial intelligence (AI), quantum technology and quantum sensing.

Your project must aim to develop:

  • innovative products
  • technology-based applications
  • and/or technology-based services with high market potential in the participating countries and/or throughout Europe

Your project must include at least one partner from one of the participating countries of the EUREKA Network in AI and Quantum. These countries are:

  • Austria
  • Belgium
  • Canada
  • Denmark
  • Israel
  • Spain
  • Switzerland
  • South Korea
  • Turkey

All documents required by Innovate UK must be completed and uploaded to the Innovate UK secure file upload site by 4pm UK time on 1 July 2019.

The EUREKA project application form must be completed and emailed to ai.quantum.call@eurekanetwork.org by 15:59pm UK time (16:59pm CEST) on 1 July 2019.

Funding type

Grant

Project size

Your project's total eligible costs must be no more than EUR 400,000. This includes costs from all partners from the UK and all other countries.

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 project costs per project are a maximum of EUR 400,000. This includes costs from all partners from the UK and all other countries.

Your project can last up to 3 years and is expected to start between January 2020 and June 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 business, of any size
  • collaborate with at least one business from the EUREKA Network in AI and Quantum participating countries, which must be a separate non-linked legal entity to the UK partners
  • follow the full process correctly

The organisations from EUREKA Network in AI and Quantum countries must meet the funding and eligibility conditions of their respective countries. These will be provided in the call for proposals document on the EUREKA web page which will be published when this competition opens.

You can also collaborate with 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.

UK partners

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.

Projects should have a balanced contribution of the total eligible project costs among the partners from the participating countries. No more than 70% can be claimed by a single partner or by all partners from a single participating country collectively.

If the lead organisation is from one of the EUREKA Network in AI and Quantum countries, UK based partners can still claim funding from Innovate UK.

Subcontractors

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

Partners not claiming funding

A non-grant claiming UK partner cannot lead on a project.

Your collaboration can include organisations from countries that are not part of the EUREKA Network in AI and Quantum, including other EUREKA members, provided:

  • they have secured full funding elsewhere
  • you describe in your application why and how they will be involved and where they have secured financing from

Multiple applications

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

If a UK business is not leading an application, they can collaborate in up to 3 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 can 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.

For industrial research projects, you could get funding for your eligible project costs of:

  • 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

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

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 research and innovation project must focus on one of these 2 themes:

  1. Artificial intelligence.
  2. Quantum technology or quantum sensing.

Your proposal must have a civilian purpose.

The product, process or service must:

  • be innovative
  • involve a technological risk
  • have a civilian purpose

The project should:

  • benefit all involved partners in a well-balanced consortium
  • have an obvious advantage and added value resulting from the technological co-operation between the participants (such as increased knowledge base, commercial leads or access to research and development infrastructure)

Innovate UK reserves the right to apply a ‘portfolio’ approach for the selection of projects in this competition.

Research categories

Your project must focus on industrial research. 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:

  • work on non-civilian applications for AI and quantum technologies
  • are not in scope
  • do not meet the eligibility criteria
  • do not submit all mandatory documentation

10 June 2019
Competition opens
14 June 2019
Recording of briefing event.
24 June 2019 12:00pm
Registration closes
1 July 2019
Deadline for Innovate UK submission
1 July 2019
Deadline for EUREKA email submission
1 July 2019 4:00pm
Competition closes

Before you start

Before you apply you must read the guidance for applicants for this competition.

Applications led by UK organisations

UK lead applicants must:

  • download and complete the EUREKA project application form on behalf of their project
  • email the completed form and supporting documents to ai.quantum.call@eurekanetwork.org before 4pm UK Time on 1 July 2019 using the subject line “AI&QT multi-lateral call 2019”
  • on the secure file transfer (FTP) site click the green “register” button to create an account
  • upload the completed Innovate UK application form and supporting documents as well as the completed EUREKA project application form and supporting documents to the secure site before 4pm UK Time on 1 July 2019

If you do not submit all required documentation your application will be ineligible.

After the competition deadline Innovate UK will check your application is eligible and in scope.

Applications led by other partner countries

UK grant claiming partners in consortiums led by other partner countries must nominate one UK point of contact. This contact must go to the secure file transfer (FTP) site and click the green “register” button to create an account and submit their completed Innovate UK application form and supporting documents.

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 9:00am and 5:30pm, Monday to Friday.

For queries about AI email Sara El-Hanfy: sara.el-hanfy@innovateuk.ukri.org. For queries about Quantum email Simon Plant: simon.plant@innovateuk.ukri.org.

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