Notice

SBRI competition guidance: Innovation in automated tunnel examination

Published 2 September 2019

1. Dates and deadlines

Competition opens	16 September 2019
London briefing event	19 September 2019
Final date for registration	6 November 2019
Application submission deadine including appendices	Midday 13 November 2019
Interviews	Week of 6 January 2020
Decision to applicants	13 January 2020
Contracts awarded	10 February 2020
Feedback provided	10 February 2020

These guidance notes complement the invitation to tender and are designed to help with completing the application form. Please read the full competition scope and invitation to tender before you make your application.

2. Funding

There is up to £1.5 million, plus VAT, of funding available from Network Rail via Innovate UK, part of UK Research and Innovation. This is for projects that tackle the technical challenges described in the brief for this competition. Note that VAT will need to be added to all invoices submitted to Innovate UK as part of delivering your project.

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. 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.

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.

Application

When 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

When the competition submission deadline is reached, your application is sent for assessment. For this competition, 2 of the assessors will be specialists on this technical area, selected from within Network Rail.

Interviews

If your written application is successful you will be invited to attend an interview, where you must give a presentation.

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 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
• details of lead applicant organisation
• contact details
• title and abstract for publication
• question 1: description of proposed idea or technology
• question 2: technical project summary
• question 3: current state of the art and intellectual property
• question 4: project plan and methodology and continued project management
• question 5: technical team and expertise
• question 6: application finances and justification of continued costs
• 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

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

1. You can only use the application form provided and must complete it using Microsoft Word. It contains specific information, including a unique reference number for your project
2. The application form contains specific fields. It is important that you complete each field and submit a fully completed form. We will reject incomplete forms.
3. You must not alter the application form, convert it or save it as a different version of Microsoft Word.
4. 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 must not 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.
5. 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.

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 your project
Contract duration (months)	Enter the project duration
Total contract costs	Projects can request a total between £350,000 and £500,000, plus VAT.
Proposed start date	Please provide your proposed start date.
What is the best way to describe your innovation?	Please select from the options
Details of Lead Applicant Organisation	Enter the full name, postcode, email address and telephone number of the main point of contact between Innovate UK and the project.
Company contact details	Enter the full registered name and other relevant details of your organisation.

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. 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.

5. Application form questions

You must answer all questions.

Question 1. Description of proposed innovation idea or technology

Clearly describe how your project will deliver the outcomes described in the competition scope. If necessary, you may include an appendix of up to 2 sides of A4. This can only include figures, diagrams and additional information, and must not be used as an extension of your answer.

Question 2. Technical project summary

Provide a summary of the technical basis of the project. This should 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 will be achieved if your innovation were to address the competition challenges

Question 3. 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 IP and its effect on your freedom to operate.

Question 4. Project plan and methodology

Your plan should 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

Continued 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 your project 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.

Please provide a summary of costs plus VAT. In addition, please provide a justification of the costs. If there is significant use of subcontractors, please explain how these will be used and the costs of each. Please note the assessors are required to judge the application finances, in terms of value for money i.e. does the proposed cost for effort and deliverables reflect a fair market price.

The costs should cover the following, as applicable.

Directly incurred costs 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 should relate to the amount of effort deployed on the project. You should calculate them, using your own cost rates. They may include: -

• general office and basic laboratory consumables
• library services/learning resources
• typing or 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 by the rail industry
• will deliver operational evidence 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 enhance the operation of the railway network
• will demonstrate rail innovation, with the potential to open up new rail export opportunities for the UK
• will provide an opportunity for 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 is consenting to the terms and conditions of the draft contract.

6. Assessment criteria

You will be assessed based on these criteria by a group of 5 assessors. Two assessors will be specialists from Network Rail. As the assessors review your application, 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? (See particularly 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

You can submit appendices with your application form. It is important to note that these are intended for 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. Each appendix should be no longer than 2 sides of A4.

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
• 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 do not use colour 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’.

8. Interview process

If your written application is successful you will be invited to attend an interview, where you must give a presentation.

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 3 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 10 minutes
• have no more than 10 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 2 A4 pages in a single PDF or Word document
• include charts or diagrams

Interview

After your presentation the panel will spend 20 minutes asking questions. You will be expected to answer based on your application form and the assessor feedback from the written stage.