Notice

Competition guidance for driving the electric revolution: building regional centres of excellence

Published 22 October 2019

1. Dates and deadlines

Competition opens	22 October 2019
London briefing event	29 October 2019
Final date for registration	27 November 2019
Submission of the full application (including finance forms, appendices and Je-S forms)	Midday 4 December 2019
Invite to interview	8 January 2020
Interview panel	Week commencing 20 January 2020
Applicants notified	21 February 2020

Please read the full competition scope before you make your application. You must also carefully read the following.

2. Regional centres: objectives and operational requirements

2.1 Objectives of the Driving the Electric Revolution Challenge

The centres represent a significant investment of the overall challenge’s budget. As such, they will play a major role in helping the challenge meets its objectives. This is the overall mission of the challenge:

Driving the Electric Revolution will be the catalyst to building £5 billion more power electronics, motors and drives (PEMD) products in the UK by 2025, encouraging industry across 7 sectors to invest and collaborate with academia to establish a PEMD supply chain.

Objective 1: To leverage the UK’s world leading research capability in PEMD to help industry create the supply chains necessary to manufacture the PEMD products the world needs.

Objective 2: To identify gaps in the supply chains and help industry fill them.

Objective 3: To ensure cooperation and collaboration so supply chains don’t duplicate effort, waste time and can reuse solutions across the 7 sectors.

Objective 4: The challenge will help fill the skills gap by retraining, upskilling and repurposing engineers, including from traditional internal combustion businesses, into PEMD supply chains.

The longer term benefits expected to be achieved by the challenge currently are:

1. Increased UK PEMD market size (£5 billion by 2025).
2. Increased UK PEMD market size (£80 billion by 2050).
3. Increased UK PEMD content (60% by 2050).
4. Increase in FDI (£10 billion by 2050).
5. Increased in OEM investment (£20 billion by 2050).
6. Increased in skilled jobs (10,000 by 2050).
7. Retrain ICE jobs (10,000 by 2050).
8. World leading research (£3 billion by 2050).
9. Deliver fast start benefits (£500 million by 2025).
10. Deliver EV transformation (100% EV by 2050).
11. Decarbonisation (less than 90% via PEMD technologies by 2050).

The whole challenge is expected to report on progress and have a detailed evaluation framework in place, work on which will commence shortly. This will be led by UK Research and Innovation. The centres and all projects funded by the challenge must co-operate with this process.

2.2 Project period and operational phase requirements

Funding from Innovate UK must end by 31 March 2024. This will be the end of ‘the project’ with regard to the grant draw down. The centres must operate for 10 years in total from the date of the funding agreement being signed. For the purposes of this competition:

• the start date is the date of the Funding Agreement being signed between Innovate UK and the successful bidder
• capital costs and operating costs up to the project end are part of the project and grant can be claimed against these eligible costs
• the ‘operational phase’ is the remaining period for the 10 years of the centres after 31 March 2024

2.3 Detailing the centres’ technical capabilities in your application

You should clearly set out what technical capabilities in PEMD your centres will contain and what they will offer to support the industrialisation of PEMD technologies. This should differentiate between what is being purchased or developed with ISCF funding, against what technical capabilities and equipment already exist within the consortium but will form part of the centres’ offering.

The competition scope sets out what high level capabilities are expected of the centres. Bidders should also note:

1. The centres are expected to operate on a day to day basis in line with industry best practice and be run like a business rather than an academic institution.
2. Where centres include capabilities for manufacturing processes configured for PEMD “product development” they should be robust and repeatable, suitable to demonstrate full production process control and quality. Where possible, the centres should have such facilities specified around the requirements of today’s state-of-the-art technologies by industry users. This is to ensure that the centres’ capabilities aligns to the needs of industry.
3. Where centres are providing capabilities that allow users to develop scalable manufacturing processes, they should reflect the clear needs of industry. Ideally, capabilities should be flexible and scalable, and should cater for current state-of-the-art as well as near future technologies in PEMD.
4. During their operational lifetimes, the centres are expected to be used for experimental and development purposes, but can also produce small batches of products to demonstrate a new manufacturing process.

We expect the centres to cater for a range of PEMD technologies at opening, based on the clear needs of users.

2.4 Governance and management of the centres

The governance and management structures of the centres are important for their successful delivery and operation.

UK Research and Innovation does not expect to take any formal ownership stake in the centres nor play a role in the day to day operation of the centres. However, Innovate UK reserves the right to do so where this is necessary if an alternative to grant funding is required.

Innovate UK will:

• provide a grant funding agreement to the centres
• monitor the centres on a monthly or quarterly basis during their grant drawdown and at a rate to be agreed when the centres are fully established
• expect industry investment or leveraged funding information to be provided quarterly
• expect representation as an observer on the main decision making bodies of the centres
• require an annual business plan for the centres which will be signed off by UK Research and Innovation each year
• expect one representative of the centres to join the Programme Board for the Driving the Electric Revolution Challenge (which meets quarterly)

Your ownership and management structures should make it as easy as possible to work with businesses and other partners from around the UK. For example, you must not deter engagement of any potential users of the centres due to concern over vested commercial interests or leakage of IP. The management must allow users (companies and research institutes) to maintain confidentiality and secure IP from the work they undertake, whilst building know-how in the staff of the facility to serve future users.

The centres need to be able to host activities spanning a wide range of manufacturing readiness levels, across diverse PEMD technologies. Companies, research organisations and universities will be likely users of the centres, working on manufacturing research, innovation and scale-up activities. As a result the management culture should balance these requirements in a fair and reasonable manner, and take an active role in outreach activities and promotion of UK capability to overseas clients.

As a nationally funded facility, projects supported by the centres should have significant and demonstrable lasting benefit to the UK. Projects must not be purely for the benefit of overseas companies with no value creation for the UK.

The centres can, at times, act as a host to the manufacture of materials and products at small quantities subject to state aid compliance. They must not act as the supplier of such materials or products to the market. The contractual role of the supplier in the market will be taken by a user or users conducting a project at the centres. All commercial agreements around the usages of those materials or products produced will be the responsibility of that user or users.

If the centres are funded as a research organisation on a non-state aid basis, any economic activity must be at industry commercial rates and must not compromise the non state aid status of the award. In the event that the centres are awarded on a state aid basis, they must remain compliant at all times with the particular exemption model under which the award is made.

2.5 Industrial Strategy Challenge Fund industry leverage

The Driving the Electric Revolution challenge has an overall target set by government to secure £154 million of co-investment over its lifetime to March 2024. This co-investment is additional to the £80 million provided by government.

The regional centres will make a major contribution to that target and must achieve at least £82 million of co-investment leveraged before March 2024 in addition to the £30 million grant funding available.

In your proposal applicants should consider industry co-investment leveraged during the period to March 2024 as:

• any funding not coming from UK Research and Innovation into the capital assets of the centres, including from universities or RTO’s own funds and investment by public authorities. This would be investment above the £30 million ISCF grant funding
• cash investment in the centres’ capital equipment made by industry but ISCF grant not claimed against these costs
• any in kind (non-cash) contributions from industry that support the work of the centres and their creation, giving a clear value for the in kind support
• any surpluses generated by the centres and re-invested as additional operational or capital spend
• project work funded by industry that takes place in the centres, not including grant funded projects (including non ISCF) as this would be double counting with other schemes
• induced or aligned funding from industry or partners that happens as a result of the centres, such as investment in a business’s own production facilities following a project with the centres to prove out a concept or manufacturing process

Centres will need to report this co-investment to UK Research and Innovation and this will form part of the monitoring and reporting structures. This will extend to the period after March 2024, but investment after March 2024 must be additional to the £82 million.

2.6 Confidentiality and intellectual property

You must set out your approach to managing confidentiality and intellectual property (IP) created in the centres. You must make sure that:

• the centres contain communal areas designed to promote collaboration and interaction between users, as well as spaces in which confidential work can be conducted
• users recognise that they will benefit from the know-how of the facility resulting from staff undertaking multiple projects and that this will benefit other users
• the centres in most cases would not be the holder of IP created on projects undertaken in the centres. This should be assigned to the collaborating companies on a project-by-project basis.
• where the centres do create IP of their own, you must clearly state how this will be managed and exploited

2.7 Communications and marketing

The winning consortium will work with UK Research and Innovation to agree a communications plan for the centres. This will be in compliance with the communications strategy and guidelines for the Industrial Strategy Challenge Fund. A comprehensive communications plan for the centres will be put in place with the winning consortium. You can include the cost of this within your total eligible project costs.

2.8 Equality, diversity and inclusion (ED&I)

Your proposal must include evidence that the centres can adopt an active leadership role in equality, diversity and inclusion (ED&I) in the field of PEMD. It must also show you have an effective ED&I strategy that:

• identifies and addresses challenges relevant to the topics and communities of the centre, with defined progress indicators
• improves the ED&I culture and associated practices (adapting strategies if necessary), taking account of long-term challenges and associated culture change that supports diverse recruitment
• offers flexible support of people with a range of backgrounds and personal circumstances which is integrated into the centre’s management and monitoring plans as well as wider organisational policies

2.9 The role of the centres in PEMD skills and training

The Driving the Electric Revolution challenge recognises the important role skills in PEMD will play in achieving its objectives and growing the UK’s supply chain by 2025. However, the UK currently has a recognised acute skills shortage in PEMD, at every qualification level.

As a response to the skills gap, the challenge has funding earmarked for skills and training, with the challenge delivery team in UK Research and Innovation expecting the centres to play a prominent role once they are established. Funding for skills sits within the challenge budget and this may include the centres being awarded further funding of up to £5 million, subject to approval. Skills funding therefore is separate to the £30 million in this competition to establish the centres and will be deployed separately in 2020. The nature of how the skills and training funding is deployed will be decided by UK Research and Innovation.

For the purposes of this competition you should:

• set out the expertise and track record your consortium has that will allow skills and training to be deployed as part of your centres’ operating model
• note that your expertise and track record on skills and training provision will be taken into consideration in the assessment process

The provision of skills development and training funding are not an eligible cost in this competition. Your proposal must not claim costs for skills or training.

The challenge delivery team, in consultation with UK Research and Innovation and wider government stakeholders, are developing plans for the skills funding within the challenge. This will be deployed in 2020. The winning centres consortium will participate in those discussions.

3. How to apply

Before you apply to an Innovate UK competition, it is important to understand the whole application process. The information contained in this guidance is specific to this competition.

3.1 Register

You will receive an email acknowledgement of your registration followed by a second email up to 48 hours later. The second email will give you a username and password for our secure upload facility along with a unique application number and form.

3.2 Application

When you have received your unique username and password, you can sign in to the secure website to access competition specific documentation. Additional documents, such as a sample collaboration agreement, are available on the public page of the FTP site for your reference.

Appendices must conform to the guidance for this specific competition. Appendices which do not follow the guidance will result in ineligible applications that will not be sent for assessment.

3.3 Submit your documents

You or your lead partner should submit to your FTP site:

• your application form with your unique application number for this competition (mandatory)
• project finance forms for every non-academic partner (including the lead organisation) in your project (mandatory)
• Je-S submission portable document format (PDF) output document, confirming a ’with council’ status for every academic partner in your project, if any (mandatory)
• project appendices as PDFs, labelled correctly as per the guidance

3.4 Scope check

Only applications that meet the eligibility criteria and scope of the competition will be sent for assessment. You will be notified if your application is out of scope with a full explanation as to why. Innovate UK reserves the right to declare applications as out of scope.

3.5 Assessment

Once the scope and eligibility checks have been completed, all applications that are both eligible and in scope are sent for assessment.

3.6 Interview

If your written application passes the written assessment stage you will be invited to attend an interview, where you must give a presentation.

3.7 Notification

We will notify the lead organisation of the outcome of the application by the date stated in the timeline, using the email address provided in the application form.

3.8 Feedback

We will give feedback to successful and unsuccessful applicants approximately 4 weeks after you have been notified of the decision. You can read your feedback by signing into the secure website where you uploaded your application documents. We cannot provide any additional feedback and we will not enter into further discussion about your application.

4. The application form

This section explains the structure of the application form and offers guidance on what to answer in each question.

The structure is as follows:

• application details
• summary of proposed project
• public description of the project
• gateway question: scope
• section 1: The vision
  • question 1: What is the vision for the regional centres and what capabilities will it deliver to support and grow the PEMD supply chain in the UK?
  • question 2: Who are the customers/users of the centres and how have they been involved in the design of your offer and capabilities?
  • question 3: What will be the impact of the centres?
  • question 4: How will the centres support the wider objectives and programme set out in the Driving the Electric Revolution challenge and how will it be developed beyond what is delivered inside of the defined project?
• section 2: Delivery of the vision
  • question 5: What is the governance structure and operating model of the centres during its operational phase?
  • question 6: How will the project be managed through the project phase to March 2024?
  • question 7: What are the risks to centres success and what is the project’s risk management strategy? This should be detailed for both the project phase and operational phase.
  • question 8: Do the project team have the right skills and experience to deliver the centres and their identified benefits?
• section 3: Funding from ISCF and industry
  • question 9: What is the financial commitment required for the centres?
  • question 10: How does your bid represent value for money and long term viability?
• other funding from public sector bodies
• finance summary table

Please make sure that you upload the final version of your application by the deadline. It is the lead organisation’s responsibility to ensure that you do not upload a blank or incomplete application form. You should also follow these steps:

• you can only use the application form provided. It contains specific information including a unique reference number for your project
• the application form contains specific fields. It is important that you complete each field and submit a fully completed form. Incomplete forms will be considered ineligible and won’t be sent for assessment
• the application form must not be altered, converted or saved as a different version of Microsoft Word
• the space provided in each field of the form is fixed. You must restrict your responses in each of the fields to the space provided. The typeface, font size and colour are predetermined and cannot be changed. Illustrations, graphics and hyperlinks cannot be included in the application form.
• the light grey shaded fields are completed automatically from other information entered on the form, such as the total columns of a table. These cannot be overwritten
• you should be able to see your total answer to the question when looking at the application form in print view. Any text that cannot be seen in this view or when the form is printed will not be assessed
• your answer to the questions should be no longer than half a page of A4 using the font Calibri 11

As part of our objective to stimulate and support UK innovation, we have established a close network of affinity partners. This list is made up of organisations that can help Innovate UK fund and support innovative businesses. Our joint aim is to speed up sustainable economic growth for the UK.

In some cases, we may share the public description of your project with other potential funding bodies, for example Local Enterprise Partnerships (LEP’s), agencies of Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland. These bodies may wish to contact you about providing funding or other support for your proposal.

Field	Guidance
Competition name	This field will show the full name of the Innovate UK competition to which the form applies. You do not need to enter anything here
Document ID	This field is completed automatically
Applicant number	This field is completed automatically and is the reference that you should use on all correspondence (this is the 6 digit number after the dash)
Application details
Project title	Enter the full title of the project
Project timescales	Enter the estimated start date and its planned duration. These are indicative at this stage and are not guaranteed
(Lead) organisation name	Enter the full registered name of the (lead) organisation for the project. If you are not in a consortium application, these will be your organisation details. Please note that the lead organisation will be the main point of contact between Innovate UK and the project team.
(Lead) organisation contact details	Enter the full name, postcode, email address and telephone number of the main point of contact between Innovate UK and the project

The following section sets the scene for the assessors and is not scored.

4.1 Summary of proposed project (not scored)

Please provide a short summary of the content and objectives of the project including what the centres will do, the industry support you have, the centres locations, their capabilities and what their impact will be.

4.2 Public description of the project (not scored)

To comply with government practice on openness and transparency of public-funded activities, Innovate UK has to publish information relating to funded projects. Funding will not be provided to successful projects without this.

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.

4.3 Gateway question: scope

Describe how your project fits the scope of the competition. If your project is not in scope it will be immediately rejected and will not be sent for assessment. We will give you feedback on why.

5. Application form questions

All questions apply to all project partners and are scored out of 10 marks. Please answer the questions fully. The questions are unique for this competition.

Please use appendices to provide additional and supporting information, not repeat what is already included in your response in the application form.

Section 1: The vision

Question 1: What is the vision for the regional centres and what capabilities will it deliver to support and grow the PEMD supply chain in the UK?

In your answer you must:

• detail the aims and vision for the centres you intend to deliver, both in terms of capabilities and services offered to customers.
• make clear what already exists in your consortium and what will be new capabilities funded by ISCF
• detail each of the centre’s features and capabilities and set out their associated benefits
• detail each one’s location and why this is the right location
• say what industry or other funding the consortium is bringing to the project, both in the project phase and the operational phase
• tell us how you will reach the overall target of £82 million of industry leverage by March 2024
• describe how the facility’s operational model matches the consortium members’ corporate strategies, capabilities and vision, including the current priorities and investment plans where applicable
• explain how the facility will operate on an open access basis
• explain how you will ensure SMEs and smaller organisations will be aware of and be able to use the facilities
• give details of how you will work with SMEs to develop new technologies and manufacturing processes in PEMD
• detail your expected operational hours per day, and any restrictions the facility may face
• describe how the facility builds on existing centres of excellence and what benefits this offers, for example enhancing existing capabilities, cost or time saved in delivery by using existing infrastructure and/or operating models
• outline how the individual centre locations or teams will work together to deliver a holistic capability in PEMD

In a separate appendix named ‘AppendixQ1-(application number)’ you can submit as PDFs format up to 10 A4 pages to provide supporting information and evidence on your response to question 1.

Question 2: Who are the customers or users of the centres and how have they been involved in the design of your offer and capabilities?

In your answer you must describe:

• the market and customers the centres and operating model will target
• how they have been involved to date in your bid, provide evidence of their support, including joint investment or clear plans to use the centres
• how you will work across all 7 sectors identified in the Driving the Electric Revolution Challenge
• how the centre will cater for the various requirements from the identified sectors
• the strategy that will deliver the centres successfully in a way that supports the wider UK PEMD ‘ecosystem’, giving evidence where possible, including letters of support with clear financial commitments or potential users or customers
• the main benefits to your target customer of your centre’s offer and how the product or services will match their needs
• the analysis of your proposal’s strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats
• the metrics you will use to measure the facility performance and its international competitiveness
• how you will market capabilities and services

In a separate appendix named ‘AppendixQ2-(application number)’ you can submit as PDFs up to 10 A4 pages to support your answer.

Question 3: What will be the impact of the centres?

In your answer you must:

• describe the impact on the UK PEMD supply chain that you expect the proposed centres to create, considering a high, medium and low impact scenario approach
• describe how the proposed facility, and any proposed supporting activity, will add value and increase the UK’s reputation for being a focal point for PEMD development and scale up
• detail how you will maximise value from the facility through measures like the time the facility is available for use
• indicate the scale of operation (how many customers, staff and projects you expect to see using the facility in any day, week and year) giving evidence, where suitable, from potential customers and users
• set out the return on investment and industry contributions that the project could reasonably achieve in low, expected and high cases (we strongly encourage a range of returns, risk weighted, not single number estimates) and provide relevant source data references and methodologies
• detail the number of jobs that will be created or retained directly by the facility in any direct or indirect supporting roles
• give the expected longer-term employment impact
• describe all envisaged benefits that result from establishing the centre
• demonstrate how you intend to exploit the centre during its operational phase
• set out any plans for scalability in the proposals: for example, if provision to expand exists should demand exceed planned capacity, or if the proposals are designed explicitly to attract foreign direct investment (for example through joint ventures) explain clearly how this will be achieved along with any associated step costs

In a separate appendix named ‘AppendixQ3-(application number)’ you can submit as PDFs up to 10 A4 pages to support your answer.

Question 4: How will the centres support the wider objectives and programme set out in the Driving the Electric Revolution challenge and how will it be developed beyond what is delivered inside of the defined project?

In your answer you must:

• detail how the centres will co-operate with other existing research facilities in PEMD not funded through this competition, naming the organisations and centres you will work with, why you have chosen them and how you will work with them
• detail your policy towards intellectual property (IP) generated by the centre on project work
• say how the centres will interact with other parts of the Driving the Electric Revolution Challenge
• say what additional benefits the centres can bring to the challenge programme
• indicate how the centres will be further developed or improved during its operational lifetime.
• detail any follow-on projects or future improvement opportunities you expect, and how this will be funded
• demonstrate that the centres can adopt an active leadership role in equality, diversity and inclusion (ED&I) in the field of PEMD through an effective ED&I strategy
• explain and detail your consortium’s expertise and track record in developing and delivering PEMD skills development and training courses, tools and activities
• say how you propose the centres support skills and training development for PEMD

In a separate appendix named ‘AppendixQ4-(application number)’ you can submit as PDFs up to 10 A4 pages to support your answer.

Section 2: Delivery of the vision

Question 5: What is the governance structure, state aid compliance and operating model of the centres during its operational phase?

You must include details of:

• your operating model and expected pricing to access the centres facilities
• state aid compliance and any advice you have received
• overarching project governance (including structure of the team including a responsible or accountable project director)
• business engagement with users and potential users around the UK and outreach and other development activity for the centres
• management reporting lines
• roles of consortium members
• milestones and gateways
• deliverables with timings
• leading key performance indicators (KPIs) proposed
• communication management and how you will work with Innovate UK on communications

Detail how the governance team will be kept informed of progress and highlight concerns or issues early to all impacted stakeholders, including UK Research and Innovation.

Detail the main commitments and responsibilities of each partner. This may take the form of a RASIC (responsible, approving, supporting, informed and consulted) matrix.

In a separate appendix named ‘AppendixQ5-(application number)’ you can submit as PDFs up to 5 A4 pages to support your answer.

Question 6: How will the project be managed through the project phase to March 2024?

You must:

• identify who will lead the project day-to-day (the project manager) and how the project team will be structured
• detail a clear project plan showing the main dates, including design, procurement, planning, fit out, equipment installation and commissioning
• describe your approach to project management, identifying any major tools and mechanisms that will be used to ensure a successful project outcome
• identify the main work packages, including resource, capital and management requirements, clearly linked to the costs allocated
• describe how the project will achieve effective project team integration between the partners, as well as the supply chain and any other main actors
• describe your approach to procurement, including how will this be managed to apply to all relevant procurement rules and the timelines involved
• identify any internal and external support that is required and indicate what is agreed at time of writing, and what is still to be agreed (estimating and justifying any external project or cost management support)
• detail which stakeholders the project needs to address during the investment phase to ensure the investment matches the needs of customers and how these have been or will be engaged Assessors will consider if:
• the approach and methodology is appropriate to the needs of the project
• the project plan is sufficient in comparison to the complexity of the project, for example, is there enough detail to understand the tasks involved and the resources required
• the timing of main milestones is realistic
• there is demonstration of sufficient resource commitment and capability to undertake the project
• clear management reporting lines and appropriate governance have been identified

In a separate appendix named ‘AppendixQ6-(application number)’ you can submit as PDFs up to 5 A4 pages to provide a project plan or Gantt chart to support your answer.

Question 7: What are the risks to the centres success and what is the project’s risk management strategy? This should be detailed for both the project phase and operational phase.

You must:

• identify the main risks and uncertainties of the project during the investment phase and operational period and provide a detailed risk analysis using a risk register, for the project content and approach
• include the technical, commercial, managerial and environmental risks as well as other uncertainties (for example ethical issues) associated with the project
• rate the main risks as high, medium or low (H/M/L)
• state how the project would avoid these main risks, tackling all significant and relevant risks their mitigation, transfer or avoidance
• identify vital project management tools and mechanisms that will be used to minimise operational risk and promote a successful project outcome, including arrangements for managing the project team and its partners

You must address any legal agreements or consents that need to be put in place to enable the works to be undertaken.

In a separate appendix named ‘AppendixQ7-(application number)’ you can submit as PDFs up to 5 A4 pages to provide a risk register to support your answer.

Question 8: Do the project team have the right skills and experience to deliver the centres and their identified benefits?

You must describe:

• the track record of the project team members in undertaking and exploiting the results of infrastructure investments and projects.
• your capability to deliver the proposal on time, to cost and quality.
• details of any vital external parties, including sub-contractors, who you will need to work with to successfully carry out the project
• any roles you will need to recruit for

In evaluating this, the assessors will consider whether the project team has the right available mix of skills and experience to deliver the project successfully, in both project and operational phases.

For the consortium, is there evidence of additional benefit from the collaboration? If the consortium is greater than the sum of its parts, how will the organisations achieve more working together than if they were working individually?

In a separate appendix named ‘AppendixQ8-(application number)’ you can submit as PDFs up to 5 A4 pages to explain the roles and experience of the main people working on the project.

Section 3: Funding from ISCF and industry

Question 9: What is the financial commitment required for the centres?

In your answer you must:

• detail the financial model for the project (the grant receiving period) and operational phases, including showing your co-investment in the centre per year of the project and operational phases
• detail in the application form financial summary table estimated project cost per work package for the period to 31 March 2024, making clear the level of contribution from any project participants and the level of funding required from ISCF
• detail a cost plan with details of how costs have been assessed, including any professional cost advice and how these have been benchmarked
• detail the spend profile by month of the project phase, linked to milestones, gateways and deliverables as needed
• provide an outline equipment schedule with estimated costs and details of how the costs have been quantified
• provide an outline of the running costs, expected further investment and forecast income for the operational phase (the phase after 31 March 2024) up to the end of the 10th year, broken down per year
• detail how the works or equipment will be procured to ensure best value for money and high UK content by describing tendering route
• detail how you will deliver the expected investment to achieve the £82 million of industry leverage by March 2024

Assessors will be looking for evidence that the project is robustly costed and can be delivered to the stated cost. Make sure that all vital finance project points you want the assessors to consider are included in the main body of your application form, such as subcontract activities or financial commitments outside the project. You should expand on these in the appendix as required. These are the main documents used within the assessment process.

In a separate appendix named ‘AppendixQ9-(application number)’ you can submit as PDFs up to 5 A4 pages to support your answer.

Question 10: How does your bid represent value for money and long term viability?

Describe how your bid represents value for money to the taxpayer and its long term viability. You must:

• explain what the contribution requested from government is per work package and why it is good value for money
• give clear indication of the match funding from industry and any direct follow-on funding from industry or consortium members, including any post-project research and development and capital spend commitments by the partners that can be directly related to a successful project submission
• detail the financial benefits inside and outside of the consortium should the project go ahead, in addition to benefits that would be achieved if funding was not awarded
• demonstrate the return on investment for the partners involved in the project, as well as the UK taxpayer, and link this to the outcomes from the project (questions 1 to 4)
• explain how your financial model is viable and robust, including against scenarios where usage of the centres is less than expected

In a separate appendix named ‘AppendixQ10-(application number)’ you can submit as PDFs up to 5 A4 pages to support your answer.

Other funding from public sector bodies

If you have included one or more entries in column 7 of the finance summary table (on the following page), please provide:

• the names of the bodies
• the name of the programme or scheme from which the funds are provided
• the fund amounts

6. Finance summary

This table lists the total eligible project costs by organisation. Please note that only certain project costs are eligible for grant funding. See our project costs guidance for information on eligible project costs and how to complete the project finance form.

Column 1: Organisation name	Provide the full names of the lead organisation followed by any other organisations in the project consortium (organisation names as noted in Companies House)
Column 2: Organisation registration Number	Organisations should provide the Company Registration Number (as noted in Companies House). Universities and higher education institutions (HEIs) should enter their RC number, charitable status, legal entity registration number or similar.
Column 3: Enterprise category	Select your enterprise category. SME definition is based on the EU definition.
Column 4: Postcode where majority of work will be done	Provide the postcode where the majority of work will take place for each organisation participating in the project.
Column 5: Contribution to the project by each organisation (£)	List the total contribution to be made to the project by each organisation. Where a University is claiming grant funding, the contribution should be £0.
Column 6: Funding sought from Innovate UK	Enter the funding sought from Innovate UK for each contributing organisation for this competition.
Column 7: Other funding from public sector bodies	Include any funding applied for separately for the project from any other public sector bodies and not as part of this competition. Funding from other public sector bodies might include other applications to research councils, other government departments, devolved administrations, other public sector organisations and some charities. The purpose of this column is to provide Innovate UK with information on the total public funding for the project.
Column 8: Total (£)	The total cost of the project for each contributor. This is the sum of columns 5, 6 and 7 and will be entered automatically.
Bottom row: Total (£)	The total of each column will be entered automatically.

Please ensure that you click out of each cell after entering your figures.

7. Finance form

This form is only for project costs up to the end of 31 March 2024. The form covers both operating costs and capital costs for this period.

It is only for costs directly incurred by the partners. Do not include any in kind financial support in this form.

Do not include costs incurred by the centres during the operational phase after 31 March 2024. Instead list these costs in your response to question 9.

Each non-academic organisation in your project must provide a project finance form using the template “Project finance form”, which is available on the FTP site. The lead applicant must submit this in Excel format together with the application form. Each finance form needs to provide a detailed breakdown on each organisation’s total eligible project costs. Please ensure that all total figures listed in your finance summary table match those stated in the ‘Form status’ tab within the project finance form.

You will be asked to distinguish between operating costs, tabs marked (O), and capital costs, tabs marked (C). Operating costs relate to those incurred in day-to-day operations and are divided into labour, overheads, materials, subcontracting, travel and subsistence, and other costs. Capital costs relate to the acquisition, construction or enhancement of significant fixed assets, including any necessary buildings alterations and new equipment. If your project incurs labour costs specifically associated with the capital build these should be included on the capitalised labour tab and not included with operating labour costs.

For this competition capital utilisation costs of existing assets are not eligible costs. However, where existing assets owned by the centres (and/or their consortium partners) are made available to be used by the centres in their operations it can be recorded as an in kind contribution towards the industry leverage figure. Capital costs incurred related to essential building works that are necessary to install new capital equipment is an eligible cost.

8. Project appendices

All appendices are submitted with the application form. Note that these are intended to contain supporting information and not substantive elements of answers to the application form questions.

You can only include appendices in support of questions as described in the guidance for those questions. Submission of any additional appendices or documentation not described in this document will result in your application being judged as ineligible and not sent for assessment. Applications submitted with incorrect appendices, with regard to content or naming convention, will be ineligible and not sent for assessment. In order that assessors can open and read the appendices, each appendix must:

• conform to the maximum length specifications stated for each question
• be submitted as PDFs
• be legible at 100% zoom/magnification
• display prominently the ‘application number’ as in the filename of the application form for example, ‘AppendixQ2-(application number eg.123456)’

Please do not submit appendices longer than the specified lengths. Assessors are instructed to only read appendices to the lengths specified in the guidance.

9. Interviews

If your written application passes the written assessment stage you will be invited to attend an interview, where you must give a presentation. The interview will be held in Swindon.

Before the interview, by the deadline stated in the invitation email, you:

• must send a list of who will attend the interview
• must send your interview presentation slides
• can send a written response to the assessors’ feedback

List of attendees

Agree the list with your consortium. Up to 9 people from your project can attend, ideally one person from each organisation. They must all be available on all published interview dates. We are unable to reschedule slots once allocated.

Presentation slides

Your interview presentation must:

• use Microsoft PowerPoint
• be no longer than 40 minutes
• have no more than 40 slides
• not include any video or embedded web links

You cannot change the presentation after you submit it.

Written response to assessor feedback

This is optional and is an opportunity to answer the assessors’ concerns. It can:

• be up to 10 A4 pages in a single PDF or Word document
• include charts or diagrams

Interview

After your presentation the panel will spend 40 minutes asking questions. You will be expected to answer based on your application form and the assessor feedback from the written stage.