Notice

Competition guidance for UK and Canada: enhancing industrial productivity

Updated 5 April 2019

1. Dates and deadlines

Competition opens	11 February 2019
Online briefing event	20 February 2019
Canada EoI submission deadline	15 April 2019
Registration deadline	2 May 2019
Deadline for submission of the full application including EUREKA application form and all supporting documents	9 May 2019 5pm UK time (9am Pacific Daylight Time and midday 12pm Eastern Daylight Time)
Decision to applicants	31 July 2019

Please read the competition brief before you make your application.

2. How to apply

Before you apply into an Innovate UK competition, it is important to understand the whole application process.

Only the overall lead applicant needs to submit an application.

The lead applicant must download and complete the EUREKA Network application form on behalf of the whole consortium. Once completed you must register via the Innovate UK competition website and submit all documents to our secure FTP site before the submission deadline.

You will receive an email from Innovate UK acknowledging your registration. Up to 48 hours later you will get a second email containing:

• a username and password for our secure upload facility
• a unique application number
• the Innovate UK cover sheet

Once you have received your unique username and password, you can sign in to the secure website where you will be able to access the templates listed below.

Submit your documents

You must work together as a consortium to submit the following mandatory documents to the secure site.

• your Innovate UK cover sheet with your unique application number for this competition
• your EUREKA application form
• a Je-S form for each UK academic institution in your consortium
• project finance forms for every UK partner in your project that will receive funding
• draft collaboration agreement
• risk register in PDF format, maximum 2 A4 pages
• exploitation plan in PDF format, maximum 2 A4 pages
• project plan and Gantt chart in PDF format, maximum 2 A4 pages
• UK Canada cost breakdown template

Your risk register, exploitation plan, project plan and Gantt chart must include details of any dependencies and partnerships with Canadian companies.

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 and NRC reserve the right to declare applications as out of scope.

Assessment

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

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.

Feedback

Approximately 4 weeks after you have received your notification email, we will give feedback to all applications that are assessed. The lead applicant can access and download the feedback by signing in to the secure FTP site where you uploaded your application documents. It is the responsibility of the lead to communicate the feedback with the rest of the consortium, if applicable. No additional feedback is provided and there will be no further discussion on the application.

3. How to apply: Canadian applicants

Canadian lead applicants and collaborators, must first submit an expression of interest application. Email the National Research Council of Canada (NRC) at IRAP.International.PARI@nrc-cnrc.gc.ca to apply.

Successful Canadian applicants can then submit a full application as described above.

4. Innovate UK cover sheet

This sheet requests basic information about your project. The lead organisation must be the same as the lead organisation stated on the EUREKA application form.

5. Innovate UK finance form

Each UK organisation in your project must complete a project finance form. The lead applicant must submit these to Innovate UK in Excel format with the application form. Each finance form provides a detailed breakdown of each organisation’s total eligible project costs.

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

UK academic institutions must submit a Je-S form showing a ‘with council’ status, rather than a project finance form.

6. Collaboration agreement

By the application submission deadline, you must submit a draft collaboration agreement that regulates the terms of co-operation between all partners. The minimum requirements for the collaboration agreement are:

• names of all project partners
• description of the project aims and the different subprojects by each partner, including brief work plans with effort estimated in person and months
• names of any third party contractors required in the project
• regulation of intellectual property rights (background and arising)
• basic regulation of joint commercialisation and apportioning of benefits
• if research organisations from either country are involved, the publishing rights of each party must be agreed to by the parties

Partners in a consortium should include separate legal and non-linked entities. This is to ensure that projects encourage genuine international collaboration, not internal company research. Where the companies are linked, they are considered a single entity under the parent company. Linked companies can specify under which nation they wish to be considered for the purposes of participation. For the purpose of funding, where companies are linked, the individual companies will receive funding from their respective national funding body.

Service fees and other charges between parties receiving financial support from national funding bodies under this call are ineligible costs and will not be reimbursed.

7. Other documents

There are templates for the other documents available to download from the secure FTP site. These contain their own guidance. Please follow this when completing the forms.