Notice

Competition guidance for Newton-Ungku Omar Fund Grand Challenge 2019: phase 1

Updated 9 July 2019

1. Dates and deadlines

Competition opens	8 July
Competition briefing webinar	16 July
Final date for registration	Midday (UK time) 16 October 2019
Deadline for submission of the full application (including finance forms, appendices and Je-S forms)	Midday 23 October 2019
Decision to applicants	6 December 2019

Please read the full competition scope before you make your application.

2. Funding

There is up to £1 million of funding available for UK businesses from Innovate UK, as part of UK Research and Innovation, and RM 5.5 Million for Malaysian businesses from Malaysian Industry-Government for High Technology (MIGHT). This will be shared across feasibility (phase 1) and demonstrator projects (phase 2) that tackle the challenges described in the brief for this competition.

This competition is phase 1.

Total UK project costs for phase 1 must not exceed £30,000.

Total Malaysian project costs for phase 1 must not exceed RM 165,000.

The UK funding comes from the Newton Fund. Applicants must be able to demonstrate that there is a clear economic and societal benefit to Malaysia from their proposed project. This is in line with the Newton Fund forming part of the UK government’s official development assistance budget (ODA).

3. Competition process

The competition process will follow these steps:

• applications must be submitted through Innovate UK
• all applications must meet the eligibility, scope and ODA requirements of the competition for them to be sent for assessment
• all applications in scope will be assessed by up to 5 UK external assessors and up to 5 Malaysian assessors who are experts in the innovation area identified in your application
• assessors from both countries will score applications consistently and in line with the same scoring matrices. They will provide written feedback for each marked question
• applications will be ranked in descending order. Applications which score over a quality threshold are reviewed against Innovate UK’s and MIGHT’s strategy to build a portfolio of projects that:
  • are high quality
  • reflect a range as described in the scope and spread of project durations that fit the funding available
  • demonstrate sufficient innovation, potential return on investment and degree of technical risk
  • demonstrate value for money, include the potential impact of the project relative to its cost, and the cost of other projects under consideration
  • demonstrate true collaboration between the UK and Malaysia
• the international ranking list will determine which projects will be funded
• the lead applicants in both the UK and Malaysia will be notified of the funding decision by email
• all applications sent for assessment will receive assessor feedback

4. How to apply

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

Each consortium must have a UK lead organisation and a Malaysian lead organisation. The consortium must nominate one of these to register for the competition through the Innovate UK competition website, at least one week before the competition closes.

The lead will receive an email acknowledgement of their registration followed by a second email up to 48 hours later. The second email will contain a username and password for our secure upload facility along with a unique application number and form. This application form must be completed in collaboration with their consortium partners in UK and Malaysia.

Application

Once you have received your unique username and password, you can sign in to the secure website. You are then able to access the finance form for this competition from the public download area.

Finance form

Only finance forms named ’Project Finance Form.xls’ will be accepted into this competition. Previous versions of the project finance form will be ineligible.

Submit your documents

You or your lead partner should submit the following documents to your secure website:

• your application form with your unique application number for this competition (mandatory)
• project finance forms for every non-academic UK partner in your project (mandatory)
• Je-S submission pdf output document, confirming a “with council” status for every UK academic partner in your project, if any (mandatory)
• project finance forms for all Malaysian partners in your project (mandatory)
• project appendices as PDF documents, labelled correctly as per the appendices guidance in section 10

After submission

It is the responsibility of the nominated lead organisation to ensure that all of the necessary information for the application has been gathered from the UK and Malaysian partners and is uploaded to the Innovate UK secure website before the application deadline. If specific information is missing in an eligible application, Innovate UK and MIGHT can, at their discretion, contact the applicant point of contact (as indicated in their application form) requesting the missing information within a specified timescale.

Innovate UK and MIGHT will initially screen all the applications received by the application deadline for completeness of information and to ensure all mandatory documents have been submitted. Applications which do not meet the basic or main criteria as outlined in these guidelines will be ineligible.

Scope check

Only applications that meet the eligibility, scope and ODA requirements of the competition will be sent for assessment. You will be notified if your application is not sent for assessment with a full explanation as to why. Innovate UK and MIGHT reserves the right to declare applications as out of scope.

Assessment

Once the eligibility, scope and ODA checks have been completed, all applications that have met these criteria are sent for assessment in both the UK and Malaysia.

Notification

Innovate UK will notify the lead organisations in the UK and Malaysia of the outcome of the application by the date stated in the timeline, using the email addresses provided in the application form.

Feedback

Approximately 4 weeks after the notification email, feedback will be provided on all applications that have been assessed. The nominated lead organisation can access and download the feedback by signing in to the secure website where you uploaded your application documents. It is the responsibility of the nominated lead organisation to communicate the feedback with the rest of the consortium. No additional feedback can be provided and there will be no further discussion on the application.

Contracting

UK partners in the successful applications will be contracted by Innovate UK and the Malaysian partners by MIGHT. Project start dates must be aligned in both countries. A collaboration agreement between all partners in the project will be required during the contracting stage.

5. 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
• gateway question: Official Development Assistance (ODA) and compliance with the International Development (Gender Equality) Act 2014
• question 1: project motivation and objectives
• question 2: project activities and outputs
• question 3: team and resources
• question 4: risks
• question 5: additionality
• question 6: costs and value for money
• 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 nominated 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 application questions should be no longer than half a page of A4

In some cases, Innovate UK and MIGHT may share the public description of your project with other potential funding bodies, for example Local Enterprise Partnerships (LEPs), agencies of Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland, and related Ministries and agencies in Malaysia. 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.
Challenge	Please select from the drop down list.
Research category	Please select from the drop down list.
Project timescales	Enter the estimated start date and its planned duration. These are indicative at this stage and are not guaranteed.
UK lead organisation name	Enter the full registered name of the UK lead organisation for the project. Please note that this organisation will be the main point of contact between Innovate UK and the project team.
UK 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 team.
Malaysian lead organisation name	Enter the full registered name of the Malaysian lead organisation for the project. Please note that this organisation will be the main point of contact between MIGHT and the project team.
Malaysian lead organisation contact details	Enter the full name, postcode, email address and telephone number of the main point of contact between MIGHT and the project team.
Have any of the project partners previously received Newton funding?	Please select yes or no. If yes is selected, please confirm which project partner has previously received Newton funding or is in the process of receiving Newton funding. Confirm which delivery partner of the Newton Fund has awarded the funding and under which Newton Fund activity.

Project details

This section sets the scene for the assessors and is not scored.

Project summary

Describe your project briefly, and be clear about what makes it innovative. We use this section to assign experts to assess your application.

Public description

To comply with government practice on openness and transparency of public-funded activities, Innovate UK has to publish information relating to funded projects. 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.

Please follow this format:

• short introduction outlining the challenge you are addressing
• brief summary of the activities and outputs which will take place to address the challenge
• summary of the envisaged impacts from your project in Malaysia, linking to the United Nation’s Sustainable Development Goals where possible, but only highlight the ones relevant to your project or technology

Funding will not be provided to successful projects without this description.

Scope

Describe how your project fits the scope of the competition. If your project is not in scope it will not be eligible for funding.

Gateway question: Official Development Assistance (ODA) and International Development (Gender Equality) Act (GEA)

To be eligible for a Newton Fund grant, applicants must clearly explain and give evidence for why and how their project fits within scope for Official Development Assistance and the International Development (Gender Equality) Act (GEA). You must complete this question and the additional appendix referenced below.

What beneficial outcomes is the project expected to deliver to those inside and outside of the consortium in Malaysia, including economic development and social welfare improvement? Over what timescale?

How is the project likely to contribute to poverty reduction in a way which can reduce inequality between persons of different gender within Malaysia, and over what timescale?

Your application will be out of scope if it does not:

• show how the project aims to ensure sustainable development in Malaysia, and thereby contribute to a reduction in poverty, and
• show how it improves the welfare of people in Malaysia, including considering the impact on gender inequality issues

Describe the benefits to those inside (project partners) and outside the consortium (Malaysian people, particularly poorer and underserved groups) and make a clear distinction between them. Be clear about what stakeholder groups you expect to benefit from this project, and avoid making generic statements.

Please support your ODA eligibility and gender equality justifications by providing further information in the appendix D of which a template is provided within the FTP site. You can use a maximum of 2 sides of A4. It must be legible in 100% zoom.

6. Competition questions

The assessors will score your answers. You will receive feedback from them for each one. All questions apply to all project partners and are scored out of 10 marks. Your answer to each question can be up to 400 words long.

Question 1: project motivation and objectives

What problem, challenge or opportunity do you plan to explore through this feasibility project?

What high-level objectives do you expect to achieve through this project?

You should describe or explain:

• the context and motivation for the project
• the innovations that the UK and Malaysian partners are bringing to this project. Including what stage of development those innovations are at.
• the main aims and objectives of the project

Question 2: project activities and outputs

How will you conduct the project to achieve the aims set out in question 1? You should outline a concise, step-by-step project plan, broken down into individual phases of work. For each phase, explain:

• what will be done
• who will do it
• what the outputs will be
• how those outputs will help towards fulfilling the overall project objectives including your ambitions to progress this feasibility project to demonstration stage

You can submit one appendix as a PDF to support your answer. It can be up to 2 A4 pages and no larger than 1MB. The font must be legible at 100% zoom.

Question 3: team and resources

Who is in the project team and what are their roles? The balance between the work conducted by the Malaysian and UK partners should be reflected here.

Give details of:

• the roles, skills and relevant experience of the project team
• the specific experience, expertise and capabilities of the team
• any resources, equipment and facilities required for this stage of the project and how you will access them
• any important external parties, including sub-contractors, who you will need to work with to execute the project successfully
• any gaps in the team that will need to be filled
• the relationship between the UK and Malaysian partners, whether this is an established or newly formed partnership and how this feasibility stage will enable the strengthening of the relationship and a subsequent application into phase 2

You can submit one appendix as a PDF. It can be up to 2 A4 pages and no larger than 1MB. The font must be legible at 100% zoom.

Question 4: risks

What are the main risks for this project?

Describe or explain:

• the main risks and uncertainties of the project, including the technical, commercial, managerial and environmental risks
• how these risks will be mitigated
• any project inputs that are critical to completion, such as resources, expertise, data sets
• the steps you will take to make sure that new discoveries and ideas will be recognised, supported and have lasting impact within your business

You must submit a risk register as an appendix to support your answer. It must be a PDF and can be up to 2 pages long. The font must be legible at 100% zoom.

Question 5: additionality

Describe the impact that an injection of public funding would have on this project.

Describe or explain:

• if this project could go ahead in any form without public funding and if so, the difference the public funding would make, such as a faster route to market, more partners or reduced risk
• the likely impact of the project on the businesses of the partners involved
• why you are not able to wholly fund the project from your own resources or other forms of private-sector funding, and what would happen if the application is unsuccessful

Question 6: costs and value for money

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

Describe or explain:

• the total project cost and the grant being requested in terms of the project goals
• how the partners will finance their contributions to the project
• how this project represents value for money for you and the taxpayer and how it compares to what you would spend your money on otherwise?
• the balance of costs and grant across the project partners
• any sub-contractor costs and why they are critical to the project

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

7. Finance summary

This table lists the total eligible project costs by organisation. Please note that only certain UK project costs are eligible for grant funding under UK State Aid rules. See Innovate UK’s project costs guidance for information on eligible project costs and how to complete the project finance form.

Malaysian partners should refer to this guidance for information on grant funding and eligible costs.

Column 1 Organisation name	Please provide the full names of the lead organisations (both UK and Malaysia on separate rows) and any participants in the project consortium (organisation names as noted in Companies House or CIN) on separate rows below.
Column 2 Organisation registration number	UK partner: Companies should provide the Company Registration Number, as noted in Companies House. UK Research Organisations should enter their RC number, charitable status or legal entity registration number, and so on.
Malaysian partner: Companies should provide the Corporate Identity Number (CIN).
Column 3 Enterprise Category	UK partners: Select your enterprise category. SME definition is based on the EU definition. Malaysian partners: select your enterprise category. SME definition is based on the SMECorp definition.
Column 4 Postcode	Please provide the postcode of each organisation participating in the project.
Column 5 Contribution to the project by each organisation (£/RM)	Please list the total contribution to be made to the project by each organisation: * Malaysian partners to input in Malaysian Ringgits (RM) * UK partners to input in UK pounds (£)
Column 6 Funding sought from Innovate UK Value in (£)	Please enter the funding sought from Innovate UK for each UK participant organisation in the consortium for this competition in £.
Column 7 Funding sought from MIGHT (Malaysia) Value in RM	Please enter the funding sought from MIGHT (Malaysia) for each Malaysian partner organisation in the consortium in RM (Malaysian Ringgit).
Column 8 Other funding from public sector bodies (£)/(RM)	Please include any funding for the project from any other public sector bodies which has been applied for separately, and not as part of this competition in £ or RM as appropriate. 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 MIGHT (Malaysia) and Innovate UK with information on the total public funding for the project.
Column 9 Total (£)/(RM)	The total cost of the project. This is the sum of columns 5, 6 and 7 and will be entered automatically.
Bottom Row Total (£)/(RM)	The total of each column will be entered automatically.

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

8. Finance form

UK applicants

Each UK non-academic organisation in your project must provide a project finance form using the template “UK Project finance form” which is available on the public area of the secure website. This must be submitted in Excel format with the application form by the lead applicant. Each finance form provides 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.

Malaysian applicants

Each Malaysian organisation (both business and academic) must provide a project finance form using the template “Malaysian Project finance form” which is available on the public area of the secure website. This must be submitted in Excel format with the application form by the lead applicant. Each finance form provides 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.

9. Project appendices

You can only include appendices in support of questions ODA Gateway, 1, 2 and 3 as described in the guidance for those questions. Submission of any additional appendices/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 a PDF
• be legible at 100% zoom
• 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.

Exchange rate

For the purposes of this competition, the stated exchange rate UK £ to Malaysian Ringgit is:

1 GBP = 5.5 MYR

You must use this indicative exchange rate in any calculations at all times during the competition process.