Notice

SBRI competition guidance: roads for the future for connected and autonomous vehicles

Published 15 January 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This notice was withdrawn on 28 September 2018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	15 January 2018
Competition briefing event	31 January 2018
Final date for registration	Midday 7 March 2018
Submission of the full application including appendices	Midday 14 March 2018
Decision to applicants	27 April 2018
Contracts awarded	25 May 2018
Feedback provided	25 May 2018
Project completion deadline	24 August 2018
Final award announced	September 2018

These guidance notes complement the invitation to tender, which can be found on the secure download site where you will need to register to submit your application. They are designed to help with completing the application form.

Please read the full set of competition documents on the secure download site before you make your application. Also read the full competition scope.

2. Funding

There is up to £200,000 of funding available from the National Infrastructure Commission and Highways England. This is for projects that tackle the technical challenges described in the brief for this competition.

Up to £30,000 will be awarded to each of the highest-ranking applications. We expect to fund up to 5 projects.

The start date is expected to be the 25 May 2018, when the contracts will be issued.

Once the successful applicants have completed their projects, the National Infrastructure Commission will award a further £50,000 to the applicant judged to have developed the best project.

Judgement of the best project will be based on similar criteria as that described in the initial invitation to tender document. These criteria will be confirmed with successful applicants before their projects commence.

The final award of the £50,000 to the best project will be unconditional on any further work being undertaken.

3. How to apply

Before you apply to 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.

Registration: 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 download site 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 competition. Appendices that 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 by external, independent assessors. A jury appointed by the National Infrastructure Commission will review the top scoring assessments. They will choose up to 5 projects to be funded.

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.

Projects: Successful applicants will be expected to complete their projects by 24 August 2018.

Additional award: Once the successful applicants have completed their projects, the National Infrastructure Commission will award a further £50,000 to the applicant judged to have developed the best project.

4. The application form

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

When considering your response, please take note of the information in the ‘assessment of applications’ section of the invitation to tender document. This summarises the page limits for each section and the marks that will be awarded.

The structure is as follows:

• submission title and innovation description
• details of lead applicant organisation or individual
• contact details
• non-technical summary of whole submission (marked)
• overview of proposed idea (marked)
• feasibility of proposed idea (marked)
• project plan and methodology statement (marked)
• application finance summary (marked)
• 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.

Be aware that:

• you can only use the application form provided. It contains specific information including a unique reference number for your project. You will need to register separately for each application that you intend to submit
• 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. The application form should be completed using a font size no smaller than 10 (Arial)
• illustrations and graphics cannot be included in the application form, however, they may be submitted as appendices in line with these guidelines below
• 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
• where page limits are indicated, please do not exceed these, as this will result in your application being rejected
• keep the use of acronyms to a minimum. Only use acronyms where a term is mentioned frequently throughout the proposal. If you do choose to use an acronym, do not assume that the reader knows what it means. Make sure you define it, bearing in mind that individual sections of the application may be read separately during the selection process
• 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. They include the following:

Field	Guidance
Competition title	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.
Project 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).

Guidance on the individual sections of the application form is provided below.

4.1 Questions

1. Submission title and innovation description (mandatory)

Please provide the title for your submission. This should be clearly descriptive and concise. It should contain relevant keywords.

What is the best way to describe your innovation? (mandatory)

The primary aim of this competition is to generate ideas for how the UK’s roads should be adapted to maximise the potential future benefits of connected and autonomous vehicles (CAVs).

Please identify which of these competition themes your submission most closely relates by selecting from the following options:

1. Road design, including road-related infrastructure.
2. Traffic management.
3. Road rules and regulations.
4. Other.

Submissions that cover more than one theme should be identified as ‘other’, as should those that cannot be closely related to the first 3 themes.

Please say where you heard about the competition.

2. Details of lead applicant organisation or individual (mandatory)

Please submit the name of the organisation or individual with overall responsibility for your submission, and other details as requested on the application form.

3. Contact details (mandatory if submitting an entry on behalf of an organisation)

Please submit the lead applicant’s name, the post they hold, at which organisation and the location.

4. Non-technical summary of whole submission (mandatory)

Provide a brief non-technical summary of your whole submission. Refer to your responses to each of the subsequent sections on the application form.

5. Overview of proposed idea (mandatory)

Avoiding the use of unnecessary technical jargon, provide an overview of your proposed idea.

Clearly explain what it is and how it would help to deliver at least one anticipated benefit of CAVs for the UK’s economy and society. Briefly outline how your idea relates to a plausible long-term vision for the use of CAVs on UK roads in 2050. Explain the reasoning behind that vision.

Examples of the potential benefits of CAVs are provided below. Please note that this is not an exhaustive or definitive list.

Improved road safety: Nearly 26,000 people were killed or seriously injured in road accidents in Great Britain in 2016. Driver error or behaviour is a factor in approximately 90% of all reported accidents. CAVs could, therefore, bring significant safety benefits.

Better road network performance: Human driver limitations lead to imprecise control of speed and road position, and limited reaction times. Recent research for the Department for Transport indicates that, with a vehicle fleet of fully driverless and highly assertive CAVs, effective road capacity could increase by up to 67% at peak time, depending on the type of road.

More efficient use of vehicles: Models of vehicle ownership and use associated with CAVs, such as ‘mobility as a service’, may improve efficiency by promoting vehicle sharing. In urban areas, automated on-demand public transport options could be more convenient than buses or trams, while using road space more efficiently than individual cars.

Improved journey quality: Driving has long been considered a significant cause of stress, so CAVs could provide health benefits. Time focused on driving could be used for other purposes, making travel time more valuable to both individuals and businesses.

New travel opportunities: CAVs could open up new travel opportunities for people who cannot readily drive, including the young, the elderly and the disabled.

Land use enhancements: CAVs may make finding a parking space near a passenger’s destination unnecessary, as vehicles will park themselves. This could free up development land and lead to significant public realm improvements.

Should your submission be successful, this section will be made public once the award is confirmed. We reserve the right to amend the description before publication if necessary, but will consult you about any changes.

6. Feasibility of proposed idea (mandatory)

Please explain how your proposed idea is feasible, affordable and deliverable, considering the following:

• the UK already has an extensive mature road network so an entirely new network for CAVs is likely to be unaffordable, and the best ideas are likely to be those that adapt existing infrastructure
• roads will be used by conventional vehicles with human drivers for the foreseeable future, and some people envisage a lengthy transition period where roads are shared by conventional vehicles and CAVs. Future-proofing, with minimal cost and disruption, is needed now to maximise the benefits of CAVs
• changes will need to be acceptable to the public as well as making sense from a technical and economic standpoint
• it will still be a priority in the future to minimise the frequency and impact of incidents, and improve the resilience of the road network generally
• other changes that will occur on roads in parallel with the adoption of CAVs, notably the take-up of electric vehicles and the roll-out of supporting infrastructure

Your response should consider the main challenges to delivering your idea, and state how you would overcome them.

If relevant, include details of any intellectual property (IP) issues in this section.

7. Project plan and methodology statement (mandatory)

Up to 5 applicants will each receive up to £30,000 and a timescale of 3 months to deliver a detailed study developing their proposed idea.

Please summarise your proposed methodology for completing such a study, including a project plan detailing the main milestones, resources and expected outputs related to the previous sections of this application form.

The emphasis in this section should be on practicality. If you are successful, we will ask for more evidence that your idea would work on the UK road network and could achieve the benefits you have identified in section 5. It is entirely up to you to propose how that would be best achieved.

At the end of the 3-month project, the National Infrastructure Commission’s appointed jury will assess the 5 studies to award a further £50,000 to the best submission.

Please note, the assessors are required to judge submissions in terms of value for money.

8. Application finance summary

Please fill in the table showing how you plan to spend the funds awarded. This table will be used by assessors to judge the value for money offered by your proposal.

The costs quoted must reflect actual costs at a fair market value. All costs should include VAT.

Please note that while assessors will judge value for money based on how you are proposing to spend the funds awarded, lower-priced competition entries will not automatically be awarded higher marks. The emphasis in this competition is on the quality and feasibility of the proposals.

9. Declaration (mandatory)

Before submitting an application, lead applicants should have discussed their proposals within their own organisation and any other body whose cooperation will be required for the project.

By submitting the application you confirm that the information given is complete. You also confirm that you are actively engaged in this project and responsible for its overall management, and agree to administer the award if made.

It is essential that you tick the box, or the application will be rejected.

Please also note the data sharing declaration and draft contract terms to which you are agreeing when submitting this application.

Project appendices

Appendices are submitted with the application form. These are for supporting information in the form of tables or figures. Do not use the appendices as an overflow for text from the application form.

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

• conform to the maximum length specifications listed below and in the invitation to tender document
• be submitted in PDF
• be legible at 100% zoom or magnification
• display prominently the ‘Project title’ as entered on page 1 of the application form
• follow our naming conventions, for example, AppendixA(application number)

If you submit appendices longer than specified in the table below and in the invitation to tender document, they will be truncated and the excess discarded.

Section number	Appendix	Page limit (PDF, A3 max)	Guidance
4	Appendix A	1 side	Additional information to support question 4 ‘Non-technical summary of whole submission’ with tables or figures.
5	Appendix B	2 sides	Additional information to support question 5 ‘Overview of proposed idea’ with tables or figures.
6	Appendix C	1 side	Additional information to support question 6 ‘Feasibility of proposed idea’ with tables or figures.
7	Appendix D	1 side	Additional information to support question 7 ‘Project plan and methodology statement’ with tables or figures. This could for example include a Gantt chart summarising your proposed project plan.