Notice

Competition guidance: Meridian 3, autonomous highway, rural and parking test facilities

Updated 24 August 2018

1. Dates and deadlines

Competition opens	4 June 2018
Competition briefing event	11 June 2018
Final date for registration	Midday 29 August 2018
Submission of the full application including appendices	Midday 5 September 2018
Interviews	15 to 18 October 2018
Decision to applicants	by 9 November 2018

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

2. Funding

There is up to £25 million of funding available from the Centre for Connected and Autonomous Vehicles (CCAV). This is for projects to develop connected and autonomous vehicle (CAV) testing infrastructure as described in the brief for this competition.

CCAV is expecting to invest from £2 million, to up to £8 million in projects depending on the competition stream. It will support up to 6 projects. Preference will be given to projects that can deliver operational facilities in 12 to 18 months and be open for business.

Projects will be supported through investment aid for research infrastructures. This is a form of state aid. This competition is limited to grant payments of up to 50% of the investment costs. At least 30% of the investment costs must be contributed by industry within the project. Any outstanding industry investment costs must be made within the first 10 years of operation.

Projects that vary from these expectations can be considered but you must consult with Innovate UK at least 10 days before the registration close date.

Please read our funding rules guidance for more information on the different categories of funding and the rules around our state aid framework.

Meridian Mobility contribution

Meridian Mobility UK Ltd has been established by CCAV as the hub to support the UK CAV ecosystem both in the UK and on the international stage. There is a charter outlining the principles by which Meridian and the projects will collaborate.

The organisation is jointly funded by government and industry. The financial contribution from industry consists of a fee of 4% of the value of the grant contribution to each partner. This is mandatory for all project partners. In order to comply with state aid regulations, the industry contribution cannot be provided by government so it is not eligible for grant funding. Meridian will invoice all project partners for 4% of their grant fund value each time a grant payment is made.

If a partner is unable to fund the fee for good reason the other project partners must provide the shortfall. It is expected that such arrangements would be agreed by the consortium and covered in the consortium agreement.

Disposal or transfer of capital assets

This funding aims to provide facilities for use by the UK CAV industry for at least 10 years after the end of the project. You must commit to keeping the facilities operational over this time. If you wish to dispose of the assets early, you must transfer to an alternative body that commits to making the facility available and complying with the operational requirements. They must pass on this commitment with any subsequent transfer.

To do this you must provide a proposal of transfer document to Innovate UK, signed by all the consortium members (or the current owner) and the proposed new owner. This document should propose:

• the nature of the transfer
• the nature of operations proposed by the new owner
• a clarification of liabilities, including who will invest any outstanding industry contribution to achieve the total 50% industry contribution
• an acceptance that the new owner is responsible for continued compliance with these guidelines and the content of the conditional offer letter, including all clauses for future transfers of any assets

The details of such processes will be defined in the conditional offer letter.

Existing facilities and ongoing CCAV funded projects

Applications are welcome from successful applicants to the initial test bed funding competition, unsuccessful applicants and new applicants. Innovate UK will use a portfolio approach to choose the project that best services the UK CAV market. We prefer applications that support existing facilities and facilities under construction over ones that duplicate or overlap them. We encourage correspondence with Meridian Mobility in order to provide background information on existing facilities and recently funded projects.

Data sharing

Meridian competitions are delivered in partnership with Meridian Mobility UK Limited, Innovate UK (part of UK Research and Innovation) and the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy (BEIS). Any information received by Innovate UK for this competition may be shared with Meridian Mobility UK Limited and BEIS. Innovate UK has an agreed data sharing agreement in place with these bodies which safeguards both personal and commercial data in accordance with data protection legislation.

Road communications strategy and Department of Culture Media and Sport 5G test bed

For alignment with national communications infrastructure strategy, correspondence with Highways England is encouraged. (HE contact point)

If 5G communications technology is to be deployed by the project, applicants must work with the 5G test beds and trials programme, managed by the Department for Culture, Media and Sport, in order to ensure efficient use of public investment into 5G infrastructure for research purposes. The programme is described in the government’s 5G Strategy.

By working together CCAV projects and 5G test beds can speed up development of the open framework that supports 5G test beds, cooperating with each other and being truly interoperable. In addition, knowledge sharing and protocol development allows multi-site testing for CCAV as part of the development of the UK’s 5G innovation network.

3. Requirements and eligibility

We expect all projects to be commercially viable and we will only fund up to a maximum of 50% of total costs matched over a 10 year operational phase of the facility. Your application should be in line with the state aid guidance on investment aid for research infrastructures.

Your project must have at least a 30% industry contribution to the initial investment (meaning the part of the project when grant is being received through Innovate UK) and at least a 50% industry matched contribution over 10 years. If some project partners are grant funded above 50%, other partners must provide non-government investment in the facility. This does not have to happen during the project, but must be evident within 10 years from the start of operation of the facility.

For example, if your total project costs during the project are £10 million, then you can get up to £7 million grant (70%), with £3 million industry contribution (30%). However, you would need to invest at least a further £4 million during the first 10 years of operation of the facility. This would bring the industry investment to a total of £7 million to match the grant value.

Your application must also follow the guidelines below:

• you may be eligible to receive different rates of funding, but the project grant cannot exceed 50% of total project costs
• submissions using the incorrect application form will not be considered eligible
• submissions without complete or missing finance forms will not be considered eligible
• all submission documents must be submitted in the correct file format as explained in this document; any document in an incorrect format will result in the entire application not being sent for assessment
• if you have been awarded previous grants as the lead or sole company, no new awards will be made if we feel that you have not made a substantial effort to exploit these previous grants. This is detailed in the exploitation plan submitted in the applications for the previous grants. The decision will meet the following criteria:
  • it will be decided by the sector team concerned using evidence from monitoring officer reports and other sources which will be documented
  • it will be made by at least 3 sector team members collectively
  • it will be communicated in writing to the company by the innovation lead associated with the new grant application
  • it will not be contestable and Innovate UK will not enter into subsequent correspondence

Your project:

• all projects must be collaborative but contain no more than 5 organisations (including the lead). Projects considering more partners should contact Innovate UK 10 days before submitting an application.
• to be considered collaborative, at least 2 organisations must be requesting grant funding from Innovate UK. The lead organisation must request grant
• only UK-based companies and research organisations are eligible to receive funding from Innovate UK
• projects can be led by any organisation type. There is no restriction to the total level of project participation by research organisations
• we can consider projects outside the ranges described in section 2 but you must contact us via customer support services to discuss at least 10 days before the registration deadline

Project lead:

A business or research organisation may lead the project. The proposal should make it clear why the lead is the most appropriate organisation to lead the project

For further information on funding and enterprise categories please see the general guidance for applicants.

4. 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.

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 finance forms for every non-academic partner (including the lead organisation) in your project (mandatory)
• Je-S submission PDF output document, confirming a ‘with council’ status for every academic partner in your project, if any (mandatory)
• project appendices as pdf documents, labelled with your application number
• a collaboration agreement (mandatory)

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

Interview: Applicants will be invited to attend an interview. Details of the interview stage will be confirmed nearer the time.

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.

5. Competition process

For this competition, Innovate UK will use a portfolio approach. This is to make sure that the strategic criteria described in the competition brief, is met for all projects considered to be above the quality threshold. This will be as a result of independent expert assessment. The process will follow these steps:

• applications will be assessed by up to 5 external assessors who are experts in the innovation area identified in your application
• assessors will score applications consistently and in line with 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 will be invited to a second stage assessment which is an interview
• applicants will have the opportunity to respond to the written feedback from the first round of assessment
• applicants will need to submit a presentation ahead of the interview by a required date
• applicants attending interview will need to bring a draft collaboration agreement in paper and electronic formats
• CCAV economists will carry out a value for money assessment based on the information provided, as detailed in section 11
• applicants will be interviewed (likely in Swindon) by 5 independent assessors
• observers from Meridian Mobility, CCAV and Innovate UK will attend the interviews
• assessors will score applications consistently and in line with scoring metrics
• applications will be ranked in descending order
• projects will be reviewed against CCAV policy to ensure there is a match
• the top scoring projects in each stream that aligns with CCAV policy will be funded
• the lead applicant will be notified of the funding decision
• all applications for the competition will receive assessor feedback

6. 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
• title and abstract for publication (mandatory)
• competition questions (mandatory)
• section 1: the vision
  • question 1: What is the aim of this facility and what capabilities will it deliver?
  • question 2: Describe the market, specific target customers and the USPs you will offer.
  • question 3: What will be the impact of the facility?
  • question 4: How will the facility support the Meridian test bed and how will it be developed beyond the project?
• section 2: delivery of the vision
  • question 5: What is the governance structure and operating model of the facility during operation.
  • question 6: How will the project be managed through the build phase and what is the timeline?
  • question 7: What are the risks to project success and what is the risk management strategy?
  • question 8: Do the project team have the right skills, experience and access to capabilities to deliver the project and identified benefits?
• section 3: funding and added value
  • question 9: Application finances
  • question 10: How does financial support through Innovate UK add value?
  • finance summary
  • finance form
  • project appendices
  • economic assessment and value for money

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 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 rejected
• 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 and graphics cannot be included in the application form. Please 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. These cannot be overwritten
• in some cases, we 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. 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 5 or 6 digit number after the dash).
Application details
Project title	Enter the full title of the project
Project duration	Enter the duration. This is the period in which you will claim grant, not the life of the facility.
Total project costs	Enter your total project costs.
Proposed start date	Please provide your proposed start date.
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.

6.1 Summary of proposed project (not scored)

Guidance

Please provide a short summary of the content and objectives of the project including what delivery of this project would contribute to the Meridian CAV test bed.

This summary is not scored, but provides an introduction to your proposal for the benefit of Innovate UK staff and assessors only. It will not be used for any public dissemination. It should cover, in brief:

• the vision of what will be delivered at the end of the project including the business need or market opportunity to be targeted
• the approach to be taken and how this will ensure an on time, cost and quality delivery
• the difference the project will make to the competitiveness and productivity of the partners involved, and the future facility customers

6.2 Title and abstract for publication (not scored)

Guidance

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

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

6.3 Gateway question: Scope

Guidance

How does this application align with the specific competition scope?

• all applications must align with the specific competition scope criteria as described in the relevant competition brief
• to demonstrate alignment, you need to show that a clear majority of the project’s objectives and activities are aligned with the specific competition

7. Competition questions

All questions apply to all project partners and are scored out of 10 marks.

Section 1:The vision

Question 1: What is the aim of this facility and what capabilities will it deliver?

• detail the aim and vision for the facility you intend to deliver, both in terms of the capabilities or services offered to customers
• detail each of the facility’s major features and set out their associated benefits
• describe how the facility’s future operational model matches the organisation’s corporate strategy and vision. Include current priorities and investment plans where applicable
• give a clear explanation of how the facility will operate on an open access basis and explain how you will ensure SMEs and smaller organisations will be aware of and able to use the facilities
• detail your expected operational hours per day, days per week and any restrictions that the facility may face..
• describe how the facility builds on any existing or proposed test facilities or 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

Question 2: What is the size of the market opportunity?

• describe the market and customers the facility and operating model will target
• detail the market analysis that shows the size of the attainable market, competitors (especially international) both existing and expected in the short, medium term and long term
• describe where your proposal fits, and what market share you believe you can secure including the strategy that will deliver that share. Provide evidence where possible to support this (include letters of support with clear financial commitments)
• describe the main benefits to your target customer of your facility and how the product or services you offer will be different from or better than competitors
• show analysis of your proposal’s strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats
• the scope requires that business plans must demonstrate how the facility is ‘customer friendly’ for all, including international customers. Detail how you meet this requirement. Please especially consider international customers and competitor benchmarking in this section
• set out the metrics you will use to measure the facility performance and international competitiveness
• describe how you will market capabilities and services, and how the organisations involved are best placed to commercially exploit the investment

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

• describe the impact on the UK and international automotive or CAV community that you expect the proposed facility to create. Consider 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 CAV development and testing
• 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 vehicles) you expect to see using the facility in any day, week and year. Where suitable, evidence support from potential customers
• set out the return on investment that the project could reasonably achieve in low, expected and high cases (we strongly encourage a range of returns, risk weighted and not single number estimates). Provide relevant source data references and methodologies
• detail the number of jobs that will be created or retained directly by the facility and in any direct or indirect supporting roles. Also include the expected longer-term employment impact
• describe all envisaged benefits that result from establishing this test facility
• demonstrate how you intend to exploit the facility
• how will companies which are not part of the funded consortium benefit from the project outputs? Describe also benefits for other groups, such as, customers, suppliers, competitors of consortium partners
• 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
• describe any links to CAV collaborative research and development (CR&D) projects
• set out any wider social and economic impacts the project may contribute towards, being careful to highlight where this is direct or indirect:
  • examples of wider social benefits may include: redevelopment, transport safety, energy efficiency or other environmental benefits, accessibility and social inclusion
  • example of wider economic benefits may include productivity, efficiency, GVA, jobs and spillovers, or transport network benefits such as resilience, reliability or efficiency

Question 4: How will the facility support the Meridian test bed and how will it be developed beyond what is delivered inside of the defined project.

• detail how the facility will cooperate with other test facilities as part of the Meridian UK testing community for CAV. This should include how the facility will support Meridian in promoting UK CAV capability as well as how the facility can work seamlessly with other facilities to offer a joined up benefit to customers
• detail how data generated will be comparable. If data is not generated during customer testing how will it be made discoverable and available to third party researchers and developers? This can include references to any standards or other facility proposals
• describe how you ensure a strong link between the proposed facility and the other facilities within the Meridian testbed
• indicate how the facility will be further developed or improved beyond the timeframe or outside of the scope of this project. Detail any follow-on projects or future improvement opportunities currently envisaged

Section 2: Delivery of the vision

Question 5: What is the governance structure and operating model of the facility during operation?

Detail the project governance structure for the facility once it is operational. This could include:

• overarching project governance (including structure of the team including responsible or accountable project director)
• management reporting lines
• roles of consortium members
• milestones and gateways
• deliverables with timings
• leading KPIs
• communication management

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

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

Question 6: How will the project be managed through the build phase?

• 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 that links to the deliverables, milestones and gateways
• outline the management reporting lines
• 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. These should be 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
• 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 (any external project or cost management support should be estimated and justified)
• detail which stakeholders the project needs to address and how these have been or will be engaged

Assessors will consider if:

• the technical 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

Question 7: What are the risks to project success and what is the project’s risk management strategy?

• identify the main risks and uncertainties of the project during the build phase and operational period and provide a detailed risk analysis 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/low (H/M/L)
• state how the project would avoid these main risks. You should tackle all significant and relevant risks and 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. This should include arrangements for managing the project team and its partners

Proposals should specifically address any legal agreements or consents that need to be put in place to enable the works to be undertaken (including land agreements, planning and highway consents, construction contracts, utility agreements and wayleaves)

Question 8: Do the project team have the right skills, experience and access to capabilities to deliver the project and identified benefits?

Describe the track record of the project team members in undertaking and exploiting the results of infrastructure or test facility projects. This should highlight your capability to deliver the proposal on time, to cost and quality. 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
• the project team’s formation objectives are clear and if it would have been formed without Innovate UK investment

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?

Section 3: Funding and added value

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

• detail the estimated project cost per work package, making clear the level of contribution from any project participants and the level of funding required from Innovate UK. This information should be provided in the financial summary table in the application form
• detail a cost plan with details of how costs have been assessed, including any professional cost advice and benchmarking
• detail the spend profile by month, linked to milestones, gateways and deliverables as needed
• detail how the works or equipment will be procured to ensure best value for money and high UK content is obtained by describing tendering route
• clarify expected investment after the project to achieve 50% industry contribution, if required

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 relevant appendix as required. These are the main documents used within the assessment process.

Question 10: How does financial support from CCAV and Innovate UK add value?

• explain what the contribution requested from government is per work package and why is it good value for money
• detail how the funding required for the project to be able to proceed allows you to undertake the project both in terms of time to market and at scale. Explain why this would be beneficial to the UK
• give clear indication of the match funding from industry and any direct follow-on funding from industry. This should include 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 tax payer. This should be linked to the outcomes from the project (questions 1 to 4)
• why would this project not be viable in the absence of government funding?

8. Finance summary

This table lists the total eligible project costs by organisation. Please note that only certain project costs are eligible for grant funding under UK State Aid rules. 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/HEIs should enter their RC number/charitable status/legal entity registration number.
Column 3 Enterprise category	Select your enterprise category. SME definition is based on the EU definition Medium sized: Headcount less than 250: Turnover less than 50 million euros or balance sheet total less than 43 million euros Small: Headcount less than 50: Turnover less than 10 million euros or balance sheet total less than 10 million euros Micro: Headcount less than 10: Turnover less than 2 million euros or balance sheet total less than 2 million euros.
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.

9. Finance form

Each non-academic organisation in your project must provide a project finance form using the template ‘project finance form: capital projects’, which is available on the FTP site. 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.

10. 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, therefore, use the appendices as an overflow to the application form.

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

• conform to the maximum length specifications listed below
• be submitted in Portable Document Format (PDF)
• be legible at 100% zoom/magnification
• display prominently the ‘Project title’ as entered on page 1 of the application form
• be named as set out in the instructions given in the guidance on the application process

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 A Up to 5 sides of A4 PDF format	Use appendix A to provide additional information to support question 1 to 4.
Appendix B Up to 5 sides of A4 PDF format	Use appendix B to provide additional information to support question 5 to 8.
Appendix C Up to half a side of A4 for each organisation in the project	PDF format	Use appendix C to provide additional information regarding each applicant organisation.
Appendix D Up to 1 side of A4 PDF format	Use appendix D to provide additional information to support question 9. Specifically, this should be used to detail the spend profile (cost and grant) by month, linked to milestones, gateways and deliverables as needed.

11. Economic assessment and value for money

The value for money assessment is conducted by professional economists employed by CCAV. They will assess the value for money of the project from the perspective of taxpayers and UK PLC. In order for the HM Treasury to release funds for grants, each project must demonstrate a clear value for money case. Value for money in this case will be assessed based on the costs to government relative to the net anticipated benefits, in this case defined as net economic benefit to the UK divided by the cost to the exchequer.

The net economic benefit to the UK consists of:

1. Gross value added (GVA).
2. R&D and innovation.
3. Employment: a. Newly created jobs. b. Safeguarded jobs. c. Indirect supply chain jobs.
4. Upskilling, networking, knowledge spillovers.
5. Wider social and economic benefits, for example savings to UK consumers, environmental benefits, benefits to UK supply chain, exports.

Profits for consortium members are not included within the value for money assessment.

Benefits will be discounted considering:

1. Additionality: to what extent would these benefits occur without government support? For example, would the project happen but over a slower timescale, would it take place abroad, or happen on a smaller scale? What is the baseline?
2. Displacement: to what extent is a project displacing employment, investment and economic activity in other parts of the UK?
3. Risk: what is the risk of the project not achieving stated economic benefits? This depends on:

• project and consortium complexity
• the investment required
• risk management strategy
• the technology itself

The cost to the exchequer is the size of the grant requested in the application and any other public funding required to achieve the benefits you highlight in this application.

The economic value assessment is conducted by a team of economists who assess the application and provide a view of their analysis to a review panel. This analysis is quality assured to ensure the judgement is an accurate and independent reflection of the information that has been provided.

If you are invited to interview, CCAV economists may require further information beyond what has been presented in your application. Prior to interview applicants may receive written feedback from CCAV economists (in tandem with feedback from technical assessors) and have the opportunity to supply a written response containing supplementary information. If requested, this document must be submitted prior to interview. There may also be requests to support the economic assessment after the interview as the process will run in parallel.

A successful project will:

• clearly illustrate how the project addresses the core objectives of the competition, as defined in the competition brief
• provide sufficient technical detail to allow industry experts to make an assessment of suitability
• provide sufficient detail to allow for a thorough value for money appraisal
• provide supporting evidence to validate the arguments that are made within the application. Examples of supporting evidence could include letters of support, copies of board meeting minutes, evidence of successfully delivered relevant projects, internal rate of return analysis with and without CCAV funding
• use the available space to provide quality information.

We will take a portfolio approach in the final selection.