Notice

SBRI competition guidance: protecting nuclear decommissioning operators

Published 3 April 2018

This notice was withdrawn on 28 September 2018

This competition is no longer open for applications. Search current funding opportunities.

1. Dates and deadlines

Competition opens	23 April 2018
Final date for registration	Midday 13 June 2018
Submission of full application including appendices	Midday 20 June 2018
Decision to applicants	24 August 2018
Contracts awarded	by end of September
Feedback provided	31 August 2018

These guidance notes complement the invitation to tender and are designed to help with completing the application forms which are available once you apply into the competition. You should read the competition scope before you make your application.

2. Funding

Note: all figures quoted exclude VAT.

There is up to £850,000 of funding available from Sellafield Limited for projects that tackle the technical challenges described in the brief for this competition.

This is divided into 2 phases:

• up to £350,000 for phase 1
• up to £500,000 for phase 2

Phase 1

In phase 1, you will complete a technical feasibility study. Individual projects can range in size from £10,000 up to a total cost of £35,000. Projects can last up to 3 months. You must complete and report on phase 1 projects by January 2019.

Phase 2

Phase 2 is only open to applicants that have successfully completed phase 1. The outputs of successful phase 1 projects form the basis of the phase 2 project. We will take the most promising projects from phase 1 into phase 2, subject to assessment and budget limitations.

In phase 2, you will develop and demonstrate a prototype based on your phase 1 technology. Projects can range in size from £50,000 up to a total cost of £160,000. You must complete phase 2 projects by May 2020.

As this is an SBRI competition, and applicants can receive 100% funding of their eligible costs.

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 differ for SBRI competitions.

You must register for the competition when it opens. 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 form and number.

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 them not being 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 correctly as per the guidance

Assessment: Once the competition submission deadline is reached, your application documents are 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 sections are mandatory.

The structure is as follows:

• application details
• title and abstract for publication
• scope
• competition questions
• question 1: Approach and innovation
• question 2: Team and resources
• question 3: Project management, planning and risk
• question 4: Route to market and impact
• question 5: Costs and value for money
• project appendices
• declarations

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

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	This must be “3 months”.
Total contract costs	Projects can request up to £35,000, excluding VAT.
Proposed start date	Please provide your proposed start date.
What is the best way to describe your innovation?	Please select from the options.
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.

4.1 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.

4.2 Scope (not scored)

Guidance

Use this section to describe how your proposal aligns with the scope of the competition. In particular, highlight which aspects of the challenge your proposal is tackling and how it will provide an integrated solution.

5. Competition questions

Question 1: Approach and innovation (30%) 2 pages free text

Provide a structured summary of the project, its technical basis and its innovation. This should include:

• a description of the project and its innovation and how it will provide a significant improvement on the current state-of-the-art technology
• a description of how you will approach the challenge on a work package basis
• a description of the different technologies that are being integrated, highlighting any elements of technology transfer
• a description of how the proposed solutions will accommodate the varying nature of the challenge going forward and if they are scalable and transferable
• a brief description of how you intend to demonstrate your technologies in a non-radioactive environment at the end of phase 2
• details of any existing IP and its significance to your freedom to operate
• realistic estimates of what benefits might be achieved if the project successfully addresses the competition challenges, such as impacts on cost reduction, time saving and reduced human intervention
• a brief outline of the likely future stages of development required and timescales needed to take the research or innovation outputs to deployment beyond phase 2
• additional information requested in appendix A

Question 2: Team and resources (20%) 2 pages free text

Demonstrate that the team has the right skills, experience and capacity to successfully deliver the entire project. This should include:

• who is in the team and what their roles, skills and relevant experience are in relation to the approach to be taken, and why they are best placed to execute and deliver the project
• the proportion of their time that the main members will spend on the project
• the resources (including materials, equipment and facilities) that are required to deliver the project and how will you ensure access to them and the required skills to utilise them, including information on where the inactive demonstrator will be sited
• any existing relationships between the project team and how these might benefit the project, and/or what new relationships are being developed (particularly SMEs) and why they will contribute to the successful delivery of the project
• relevant expertise in the team in taking research through to demonstration and commercialisation
• additional information as requested in appendix B

Question 3: Planning, risks and management (20%) 2 pages (1 table and 1 page free text)

Provide a plan that identifies the main areas of work within the project, with milestones, resources and success criteria for both phases 1 and 2. You should focus on providing evidence that the technology can be made into a viable working demonstrator which achieves the proposed objectives. This should include:

• completing the milestone register table in the application form. Please describe the main project milestones, resources and success criteria for both phases 1 and 2 in the space provided. Only give a maximum of 2 milestones for phase 1, all other milestones should be for phase 2.
• describing your approach to project management, identifying any important tools and mechanisms that will be used to ensure successful project delivery and management reporting lines
• describing the main risks and uncertainties of the project and how they will be mitigated
• how you intend to handle any IP that arises during the project
• additional information as requested in appendix C

Question 4: Route to market and commercialisation (15%) 1 page free text

Describe your understanding of the current market and state how you intend to benefit from it as a result of this project. This should include:

• the size of the market you will target
• your current position in this market and its supply chain
• your route to market and how you will be establishing or extending your market position
• identification of other potential markets for the technology and your strategy for exploiting them

Question 5: Finance and value for money (15%) 3 pages (2 tables and 1 page free text)

Demonstrate clear value for money and note that the costs quoted must reflect actual costs at a ‘fair market value’ and should not include profit.

You must provide:

• a complete summary of costs table for carrying out phase 1
• a complete summary of costs table for carrying out phase 2, but we will understand these can only be best estimates at this stage
• a justification of the costs for phases 1 and 2
• a justification for the use of subcontractors, explaining how these will be used and the costs of each
• an indication of any additional funding being brought to the project, either from the team or from third parties, that may increase value for money

Note that 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. 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 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 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.

6. Project appendices

Submit appendices with the application form. It is important to note that these are intended to contain supporting information and must not be a continuation of answers to the application form questions. Do not, therefore, use the appendices simply 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’ in the document as entered on page 1 of the application form
• be named as set out in the instructions given in the application process guidance

If you submit appendices longer than specified, they will not be assessed.

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 A Up to 2 sides of A4 PDF format	Use appendix A to include additional information that strongly supports question 1, your ‘proposed approach and innovation’. You are encouraged to include images and graphics as well as text.
Appendix B Up to 2 sides of A4 PDF format	Use appendix B to provide evidence to support question 2, that the ‘team and resources’ have the capability to successfully deliver the complete project. This can include, for example, brief CVs of the main team members and examples of success stories, though these stories must be relevant.
Appendix C Up to 2 sides of A4 PDF format	Use appendix C to support question 3, ‘Project management, planning and risks’. You should provide a Gantt chart or plan covering phases 1 and 2 and a risk analysis table covering both phases.

6.1 Declarations

Guidance

Please tick the box in this section. By doing so you are confirming that:

• you have agreed participation with your own organisation and any sub-contractors
• the application is complete and your organisation will be actively involved in the project and responsible for its delivery
• you have read and understood all of the competition documentation
• you agree to the terms and conditions of the draft contract