Notice

Competition guidance for SBRI rail demonstrations: first of a kind 2020

Published 6 January 2020

1. Dates and deadlines

Competition opens	13 January 2020
London briefing event	21 January 2020
Manchester briefing event	23 January 2020
Cardiff briefing event	Date to be announced
Final date for registration	Midday 4 March 2020
Submission of the full application (including appendices)	Midday 11 March 2020
Decision to applicants	1 May 2020
Contracts awarded	29 May 2020
Feedback provided	29 May 2020

This guidance complements the invitation to tender and application form. Please read the full competition scope before you make your application.

2. Funding

There is up to £9.4 million of funding available from the Department for Transport (DfT). This is for projects that tackle the technical challenges described in the brief for this competition.

3. How to apply

Before you apply into an Innovate UK competition, it is important to understand the whole application process. The information below is specific to this competition. In addition, please read Innovate UK’s general guidance for applicants which will give information on the application process. Please note however that the funding rules may differ for SBRI competitions.

You will receive an email acknowledgement of your 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.

Application

Once you have received your unique username and password, you can sign into the secure website to access additional documentation for this competition.

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.

Submit your documents

You should submit:

• your application form with your unique application number for this competition
• project appendices as pdf documents, labelled with your application number

Assessment

Once the competition submission deadline is reached, your application is sent for assessment.

Notification

We will notify you of the outcome of your application on the date stated in the timeline.

Feedback

We will give feedback to successful and unsuccessful applicants approximately 4 weeks after you have been notified of the decision. You can access the feedback by signing into the secure website where you uploaded your application documents. No additional feedback can be provided and there will be no further discussion on the application.

4. The application form

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

The structure is as follows:

• application details
• title and abstract for publication
• competition questions
• question 1: describe your proposed innovation idea
• question 2: scientific or technical project summary
• question 3: technical background, current state of the art and intellectual property
• question 4: project plan and methodology
• question 5: technical team and expertise
• question 6: application finances
• question 7: commercial potential
• question 8: application to the rail industry: practicality
• question 9: application to the rail industry: benefits
• question 10: declaration
• project appendices

Please make sure that you upload the final version of your application by the deadline. It is your responsibility to ensure that you do not upload a blank or incomplete application form.

You must follow these rules:

• only use the application form provided as it contains specific information, including a unique reference number for your project
• complete all fields as incomplete forms will be rejected
• do not alter the application form, convert or save it as a different version of Microsoft Word
• restrict your responses in each of the fields to the space provided.
• do not change the typeface, font size or colour
• do not include illustrations and graphics in the application form
• check your completed application form in print layout as any text that can’t be seen in this view or when the form is printed will not be assessed

The light grey shaded fields are completed automatically from other information entered on the form, such as the total columns of a table, so you cannot overwrite them.

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 5 or 6 digit number after the dash).
Application details
Project title	Enter the full title of the project.
Project duration	Enter the project duration. Projects must be no longer than 9 months.
Total contract costs	Projects can request a total of £400,000, including VAT.
Proposed start date	Please provide your proposed start date. Projects must plan to start by 1 July 2020 and can last no more than 9 months. All work must be completed by 31 March 2021.
What is the best way to describe your innovation?	Please select from the options.
Theme (if appropriate)	Please select from the dropdown list.
Company details	Enter the full registered name and other relevant details of your organisation.
Company contact details	Enter the full name, postcode, email address and telephone number of the main point of contact between Innovate UK and the project.

Title and abstract for publication (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.

Provide a short description of your proposal in a way that will be understandable to the general public. Do not include any commercially confidential information, for example intellectual property or patent details.

Describe your project. Funding will not be provided to successful projects without this.

5. Competition questions

Include scoring in question details

Question 1. Describe your proposed innovation idea

Clearly describe how your project will deliver the outcomes described in the competition scope.

Question 2. Scientific or technical project summary

Provide a summary of the technical basis of the project. Include:

• an outline of the background to the project
• what the innovation is
• the main deliverables of the project
• highlights of the research and development which will prove the scientific merit of your project
• what might be achieved if your innovation was to address the competition challenges

Question 3. Technical background, current state of the art and intellectual property

Provide details of any competitors or market alternatives. What are the benefits of your innovation? Include details of any existing intellectual property (IP) and its significance to your freedom to operate.

Question 4. Project plan and methodology

Identify the main areas of work within the project with milestones and deliverables.

You should focus on providing evidence that the technology can be made into a viable working product which achieves the proposed benefits. Record keeping and reports are particularly useful.

You must:

• supply a Gantt chart as an appendix (in PDF format)
• detail how any IP issues would be handled

Project management

Tell us about the project management processes you will use to meet your aims. Identify risks and mitigations.

If you are applying from a university, include details of your plan for commercialisation of the results of your project.

Question 5. Technical team and expertise

A detailed description of the skills and expertise and track record of the team, including the relevant knowledge and skills of each member and the proportion of their time that will be spent on the project. Relevant commercial and management expertise should also be included.

Question 6. Application finances

The costs quoted must reflect actual costs at a ’fair market value’ and should not include profit.

Provide a summary of costs. All costs must include VAT.

Provide a justification of the costs. If there is significant use of subcontractors, explain how these will be used and the costs of each.

The assessors are required to judge the application finances, in terms of value for money. In other words, does the proposed cost for effort and deliverables reflect a fair market price?

The costs should cover the following, as applicable.

Directly incurred costs

These are costs that are specific to the project and is the amount actually spent, supported by an audit record in justification of a claim. They include:

• individual labour costs for all those contributing to the project
• material costs (including consumables specific to the project)
• capital equipment costs
• sub-contract costs
• travel and subsistence
• indirect costs
• other costs specifically attributed to the project

Indirect costs

These relate to the amount of effort deployed on the project. Calculate them using your own cost rates. They can include:

• general office and basic laboratory consumables
• library services and learning resources
• typing and secretarial
• finance, personnel, public relations and departmental services
• central and distributed computing
• cost of capital employed
• overheads

Itemisation of costs and methods of calculation may be requested to support the application at a later date.

Question 7. Commercial potential

Describe how you would realise the proposed commercial solution and give relevant timescales.

Describe the competitive advantage this technology has over existing and alternative technologies that can meet the market needs.

Question 8. Application to the rail industry: practicality

Explain how your idea will be applied to the rail industry, in particular how your demonstration:

• delivers a plausible innovation that has a good probability of being successfully exploited on one or more railway systems operating in the UK
• will deliver operational evidence, and an opportunity to assess public confidence and commercial incentives, to help accelerate the commercialisation of this innovation in the rail industry
• will support rail staff in gaining an understanding of the need and impact of this innovation, and an opportunity to assess the whole system benefits and opportunities
• will help open up markets for this rail innovation based on evidence, technical data and intelligence gathered from the demonstrator experience

Question 9. Application to the rail industry: benefits

Explain how your idea will be applied to the rail industry, in particular how your proposed demonstration:

• will give rail passengers an enhanced experience of using the railway, or give rail staff an enhanced experience of operating the railway
• will provide an opportunity for media coverage of an innovation success, to help drive an increase in satisfaction levels for rail staff and rail customers
• will help to provide evidence of how relevant regulations may affect the delivery of railway innovations
• will help ensure that barriers and risks to commercialisation are evident and made manageable

Question 10. Declaration

Acknowledge that by applying, the lead applicant consents to the terms and conditions of the draft contract.

6. Assessment criteria

You will be assessed based on these criteria by up to 5 assessors and they will weight their scoring as follows:

1. How well does the proposed idea, solution or technology meet the challenge as detailed in the brief? Weighting: 10
2. How valid is the technical approach that will be adopted? Weighting: 10
3. Have the applicants made a good case for application of this idea, solution or technology to the rail industry? This particularly relates to questions 8 and 9 on the application form. Weighting: 40
4. How innovative is this project? To what extent does the project develop or employ novel concepts, approaches, methodologies, tools or technologies for this area? Weighting: 10
5. To what extent does the proposal show a clear plan for establishing technical and commercial feasibility and the development of a working prototype? How does the proposal demonstrate that there is a clear management plan? What are the risks (technical, commercial and environmental) to project success? How effectively will these be managed? How appropriate are the milestones and evaluation procedures? Weighting: 10
6. To what extent does the applicant appear to have the right skills, capabilities and experience to deliver the intended benefits? Weighting: 10
7. How appropriate is the proposal financially? Is the overall budget realistic and justified in terms of the aims and methods proposed? Are the costs appropriate and justified? Weighting: 10
8. Is there a clear commercial potential to lead to a marketable product, process or service and a clear plan to deliver that and route to market? How significant is the competitive advantage which this technology affords over existing or alternate technologies that can meet the market needs? Weighting: 20

7. Project appendices

Appendices are submitted with the application form. It is important to note that these are intended to contain supporting information and not as an overflow for answers to the application form questions. Do not use the appendices as an overflow to the application form.

In order that assessors can open and read the appendices, each must:

• conform to the maximum length specifications listed below
• be submitted in portable document format (.pdf)
• be legible at 100% zoom
• display prominently the ‘Project title’ as entered on page 1 of the application form
• be named as set out in the guidance on applying for a document-based competition

If you submit appendices longer than specified below, they will be truncated and the excess discarded.

Appendices may be printed or photocopied in black and white, so colour should not be used as a way of highlighting important information.

Appendix	Guidance
Appendix Q1 Up to 2 sides of A4 PDF format	Use Appendix Q1 to provide additional information to support question 1 ‘Description of proposed idea or technology’, with pictures, diagrams or a brief technical document.
Appendix Q4 Up to 2 sides of A4 PDF format	Use Appendix Q4 to provide a Gantt chart to support question 4 ‘Project plan and methodology’.