Funding competition Scaling up England's digital pathology, imaging and AI centres of excellence

NHS trusts can apply for a share of up to £50 million capital funding to scale up digital pathology, radiology and AI capabilities in England.

Competition opens: Monday 14 October 2019
Registration closes: Wednesday 20 November 2019 12:00pm

This competition is now closed.

Description

The Department of Health and Social Care (DHSC) will work with Innovate UK to invest up to £50 million in capital-only projects. We expect the centres to secure additional funding from industry.

This programme builds on the existing Industrial Strategy Challenge Fund (ISCF) investment in centres of excellence in digital pathology, imaging and AI. This funding will accelerate and scale-up the work of the English centres and strengthen their partnerships with NHS trusts. It will enable the flow of accessible data for use in research and the development of AI diagnostics technology. The aims of this competition are to:

modernise diagnostic services
spread the existing centres of excellence into an expanded network of NHS trusts in England
support research to improve diagnosis and deliver precision treatments

Your proposal must show how you will use this funding to improve workflow efficiencies in pathology and/or radiology.

Only NHS trusts associated with the lead of the 4 current centres of excellence in England can lead an application. Only NHS trusts in England are eligible to receive funding.

The competition closes at midday 12pm UK time on the deadline stated.

Funding type

Grant

Project size

Your project’s total eligible costs must be between £10 million and £30 million.

Who can apply

State aid

Funding for this competition is from the DHSC Carter Efficiency Fund and will be allocated as non-state aid. This means that the benefits received by the applicants, partners and subcontractors of the centres as a result of taking part in this funded project cannot derive a selective advantage with regards to any economic activity.

Procurement of goods and services by the NHS trusts using this funding must be compliant with public procurement law. Applicants are strongly advised to seek independent legal advice on this point and will be expected to demonstrate compliance with the non-aid basis of their award.

Your project

Your project’s total eligible costs must be between £10 million and £30 million. The total grant requested must be below £20 million.

Projects must start by 1 April 2020 and end by March 2023. They must spend at least 70% of capital funding by April 2021. They can last up to 36 months.

Lead organisation

To lead a project your organisation must:

be a lead NHS trust or NHS trust associated with the lead academic from the existing 4 English ISCF centres of excellence in digital pathology, radiology and AI
collaborate with at least 2 additional English NHS trusts

Project team

To collaborate with the lead organisation and claim grant your organisation must:

be an NHS trust based in England
carry out its project work in England
intend to exploit the results from or in England
be invited to take part by the lead applicant

The lead and at least 2 other organisations must claim funding.

Your project can include partners that do not receive any of this competition’s funding, for example businesses. Their costs will count towards the total eligible project costs.

NHS trusts may subcontract to other organisations to deliver the project, including but not limited to:

academic health science networks
businesses
charities
universities

Please note, however, that:

benefits received from this project by non-grant claiming partners are not permitted to derive commercial or economic selective advantage
any form of subcontracting under this funding arrangement shall be subject to written consent being obtained from Innovate UK and such consent will not be unreasonably withheld
non-grant claiming companies can be subcontracted to for up to £1 million per application, not per company. This must be for work packages outside the ones in which they are contributing funds and must be detailed on the application form. For clarity, procurement of goods or services from a provider, including from non-grant claiming partners, is not included in this limitation on subcontracting
any procurement activity by the NHS trust must be compliant with public procurement law and the trust’s standard procurement policies and procedures
compliance with these conditions will be subsequently validated by Innovate UK

Multiple applications

The NHS trust associated with the lead organisation for the existing centres of excellence can lead on one application and collaborate in any number of applications.

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've 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.

Funding

We have allocated up to £50 million to fund capital-only projects in this competition.

NHS trusts can apply for up to 100% of their eligible costs.

For every application, the cost of the programme will be the total of the grant requested and the contribution secured by the centres from other organisations.

This competition provides capital funding on a non-state aid basis, for non-economic activity only. It is your responsibility to make sure that your costs are consistent with the non-aid status of the funding model. No other costs will be eligible.

Your proposal

This competition provides capital funding for NHS trusts to invest in new digital infrastructure and modernise pathology and/or radiology services.

We are looking to fund a portfolio of projects, across digital pathology and radiology, while ensuring value for money.

Your proposal must explain how this funding will improve workflow efficiencies in pathology and/or radiology, by investing in new equipment. This might include scanners, viewers, and picture archiving and communication systems (PACs).

Your proposal must:

address interoperability and data flow with the other centres of excellence
support the aims of the existing centres of excellence to start using AI diagnostic solutions and make use of significant funding from industry
represent good value for money, as required by the Department of Health and Social Care and HM Treasury

Refurbishment of existing buildings is in scope. You must contact Innovate UK for discussion if your application includes any building work.

Specific themes

Your project must focus one or more of the following:

implementation of digital pathology into new NHS trusts
modernisation of radiology and introduction of in-vivo imaging services into new NHS trusts
helping the existing centres of excellence develop and start using AI algorithms for medical imaging and/or integration with other diagnostic data sources

We will also welcome applications that will support the further development of the centres of excellence as a network.

Projects we will not fund

We are not funding:

exemplar projects, but you can include exemplar projects that support the proposal and have secured industry funding in your total eligible project costs
running and maintenance costs
significant building work

Any non grant-receiving partners in your consortium can fund these costs themselves. You must include this in the project costs in your finance form and treat it as leveraged funding.

We will not fund programmes that commit organisations in England to working with a single vendor.

14 October 2019: Competition opens
17 October 2019: Online briefing event
20 November 2019 12:00pm: Registration closes
4 December 2019 12:00pm: Competition closes
19 December 2019: Invite to interview
20 January 2020: Interview panel
31 January 2020: Applicants notified

Before you start

You must read the guidance for applicants for this competition before you complete your application. It will be available on our secure server when you apply.

Registration closes at midday 12pm UK time on the registration deadline stated. Only the lead applicant is required to register for the competition.

To apply:

register using the green button above
attending the briefing event listed in ‘Dates’
complete and upload your online application to our secure server

We will not accept late submissions. Your application is confidential.

A selected panel of experts will assess the quality of your application. You must use Microsoft Word for the application form or your application will be ineligible

Background and further information

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

If you need more information, 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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