As part of the Industrial Strategy the Government will invest in the “Commercialising quantum technologies” Industrial Strategy Challenge Fund (ISCF) to enable the UK to lead the global development and application of quantum technologies. The aim of the competition is to advance the commercialisation of quantum technologies in the UK through the investment of up to £27m in innovation projects. The webcast recording is now available. Click here to watch it: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8beNopMS7sw Find out more about the Quantum Technologies Special Interest Group at https://ktn-uk.co.uk/interests/quantum-technologies Join the Quantum Technologies Special Interest Group at https://www.linkedin.com/groups/8594516/

1. • Melissa Hughes – Portfolio Manager
• Lydia Weir-Blankstein – Portfolio Manager
Competition Process

2. • Scope
• Eligibility Criteria
• The Innovation Funding Service
• Application Finances
• Academic partners
• Submitting your application
• Assessment
• Project set-up for successful applicants
• Q&A
Agenda

3. Eligibility Criteria

4. Feasibility and industrial
research projects
Large collaborative projects
Project Eligibility
 Lead must be a UK-based
business
 Must include at least one UK
SME
 Single or collaborative
 You must carry out your
project in the UK
 Exploit the results from / in
the UK
 Lead must be a UK-based
business
 Must be collaborative and
include an SME
 You must carry out your
project in the UK
 Exploit the results from / in
the UK
Project cost
Up to £500,000
Market research projects must
be below £50,000
£2million to £10million
Project length
6 to 18 months. Projects must
start on or before April 2020
18 to 36 months. Projects must
start on or before June 2020
Eligibility criteria

5. • Business – Small/Micro, Medium or Large (EU definition)
• Research Organisation (RO):
• Universities (HEIs)
• Non profit distributing Research & Technology Organisation (RTO) including Catapults
• Public Sector Research Establishments (PSRE)
• Research Council Institutes (RCI)
• Public sector organisations and charities doing research activity
• Must be based in the UK
• Check out the EU definition of a business (it may affect the grant you are able to claim)
http://ec.europa.eu/growth/smes/business-friendly-environment/sme-definition_en
• If you are 100% owned by a large parent company as a small subsidiary this means by EU rules you are classed as
a large company and will only be entitled to the relevant grant
Types of organisations we fund

6. Eligibility for State Aid
• Innovate UK is offering funding for this competition under the General Block Exemption Regulation. This
is available to eligible UK businesses.
• We are unable to grant funding to limited liability companies meeting the condition known as
‘undertakings in difficulty’.
• This is where more than half of a company’s subscribed share capital has disappeared as a result
of accumulated losses.
• This test only applies to companies that are more than 3 years old.
• If you have a parent company the test can be performed on your parent or holding company.
• When submitting an application you must certify that you are eligible for state aid. If you are unsure,
please take legal advice before applying.
• Should you be successful, we will apply this test as part of our viability checks before confirming the
grant offer.
• Further information is available on our website in the general guidance under state aid

7. State Aid – Article 25
• Special rules apply to:
o Fisheries,
• Funding for R&D projects split in to 3 categories; Feasibility studies, Industrial research & Experimental development.
• Applies to almost all sectors of the economy and has a wide range of eligible costs.
• Pre-approved state aid covering:
o Aid for research and development and
innovation,
o Regional aid
o Aid to SMEs in the form of investment aid,
operating aid and SMEs access to finance,
o Aid for environmental protection,
o Training aid,
o Recruitment and employment aid for
disadvantaged workers or workers with
disabilities,
o Aid to make good the damage caused by certain
natural disasters,
o Social aid for transport for residents for remote
regions,
o Aid for broadband infrastructures,
o Aid for culture and heritage conservation,
o Aid for sport and multifunctional recreational
infrastructures,
o Aid for local infrastructure.
o Agriculture, o Companies in difficulty, o Companies undergoing a state aid
recovery order.

8. • The aim of our State Aid scheme is to:
• optimise the level of funding to business and
• recognise the importance of research base to project
Large collaborative projects:
• At least 70% of total eligible project costs must be incurred by business
• The maximum level (30% of project costs) is shared by all research organisations
Feasibility projects:
• At least 50% of total eligible project costs must be incurred by business
• The maximum level (50% of project costs) is shared by all research organisations in
feasibility and industrial research projects
Participation Rules

9. In all collaborative projects there must be:
• at least two organisations claiming grant within the application (including the lead)
• a business lead consortium, which may involve both business and the research base
and
• evidence of effective collaboration
• we would expect to see the structure and rationale of the collaboration described
in the application.
What is collaboration?

10. Making more than one application and
resubmissions
Feasibility and industrial research
Any one business can lead up to 3 applications but all applicants can partner in any number of applications.
Large collaborative projects
• Academic institutions cannot lead or work alone. However, in exceptional circumstances, an RTO can lead if they provide
justification by email to support@innovateuk.ukri.org at least 10 days before the competition closes.
• Any one business can only lead on one application but can be a partner in any number of applications.
If an RTO is:
• approved to lead on an application they must collaborate with 2 businesses or more (at least one must be an SME) and can
only lead once
• not the lead on any application, they can collaborate in any number of applications
• An academic institution can collaborate on any number of applications.
• If an application is unsuccessful, you can use the feedback received to reapply for the same project into either another round
of this competition or another competition. A project proposal can only be submitted twice

11. Resubmissions
Resubmission Not a resubmission
A resubmission is:
an application Innovate UK judges as not materially
different from one you've submitted before (but it
can be updated based on the assessors' feedback)
A brand new application/project/idea that you have
not previously submitted into an Innovate UK
competition
OR
A previously unsuccessful or ineligible application:
 has been updated based on assessor feedback
 and is materially different from the application
submitted before
 and fits with the scope of this competition
This competition does allow resubmissions

12. Other Innovate UK projects
• If you have an outstanding final claim and Independent Accountant Report (IAR) on any
Innovate UK project, you will not be eligible to apply for grant funding in this competition,
as a lead or a partner organisation.
• If you applied to a previous competition as the lead or sole company and were awarded
funding by Innovate UK, but did not make a substantial effort to exploit that award, we will
award no more funding to you.

13. Timeline Dates
Competition Opens 5 August 2019
Submission Deadline 12:00pm 30 October 2019
Interviews – large collaborative stream
only
w/c 6 January 2020
Applicants informed
Feasibility and industrial research: 13 December
2019
Large collaborative: 17 January 2020
Key Dates

14. The Innovation Funding Service (IFS)

15. Search for a funding competition and review criteria

16. Applicant: create an account
To create your account:
UK based businesses - Use Companies House
lookup as it speeds up our checks by providing
your company number and your are unable to
enter it at a later date
Research organisations, academics &
Universities - Enter your information manually so
you’re not listed as a business on IFS and ensure
you receive the correct funding

17. tails
• Application Team
- Collaborators: Invite organisations who you are working with on the project
- Contributors: Invite colleagues from your own organisation to help you complete your application
• Application Details
- Title, Timescales, Research Category & Resubmission (y/n)
• Project Summary
- Short summary and objectives of the project including what is innovative about it
• Public Description
- Description of your project which will be published if you are successful
• Scope - How does your project align with the scope of this competition?
- If your project is not in scope, it will be ineligible for funding

18. Application form
Question 1 Need or challenge
Question 2 Approach and innovation
Question 3 Team and resources
Question 4 Market awareness
Question 5 Outcomes and route to market
Question 6 Wider impacts
Question 7 Project management
Question 8 Risks
Question 9 Added value and industry investment
Question 10 Costs and value for money
Appendix Q3
Appendix Q7
Appendix Q8
Appendix Q2
Application Questions
Detailed Guidance
Available on IFS
Pay attention to
questions 6 and 9
as these have had
additional
changes to focus
on ISCF and
industry
investments

19. Spell check using your web
browser
online guidance
assign the
question to a
collaborator
Formatting for
your content
Word count
Answering a question

20. Application Finances

21. To claim funding:
Your business does not have to be UK registered with Companies House when you apply but it
must be registered before you can receive funding.
You are unable to claim funding if:
• You are an overseas organisation so your company number begins with FC
• You organisation is setup as a branch so your company number begins with BR
• Your company is based in Jersey so your company number begins with JE

22. Labour costs
Ineligible:
•Dividends
•Bonuses
•Non productive time
Eligible:
• Staff working directly
on project.
• Paid by PAYE
• NI, pension, non-
discretionary costs.
Labour

23. Overheads
• Innovate UK’s definition:
• Additional costs and operational expenses incurred
directly as a result of the project. These could include
additional costs for administrative staff, general IT, rent
and utilities
• Indirect (administration) overheads
• please ensure they are additional and directly
attributable to the delivery of the project
• Direct overheads
• E.g. office utilities, IT infrastructure, laptop
provision not covered by capital usage
• must be directly attributable to the project
• Provide detailed breakdown together with
methodology/basis of apportionment

24. Material costs
Please be clear on what
the materials are, just
putting consumables
doesn’t provide enough
detail and we will request
more information should
you be successful

25. Capital equipment usage
Eligible:
• Used in the project or shared with
day-to-day production
Calculations will need to be inline with your
accounting practices.
Even if the equipment is depreciated fully over
the life of the project this must be added under
capital equipment.

26. Sub-contractors
Eligible:
•Justified and quantified
•If using non-UK sub-contractors are
being used you will need to provide
strong justification on why an UK-based
sub-contractor is not being used
•If you’re sub-contracting to a parent or
sister company, please ensure you list
at cost and do not include profit.

27. Travel & Subsistence
Eligible:
Costs must be directly linked to
the project
Please breakdown your costs as
follows:
• Travel
• Accommodation
• Subsistence
If you have an annual trip to visit the parent company this is not an eligible cost

28. Other costs
Eligible:
•Costs that could not be added under
previous headings.
•Do not double count
•Patent filing costs for new IP – SMEs
up to £7,500

29. Funding
• Funding rules
• The level of funding awarded will depend upon the type of organisation
and the type of research being undertaken in the project
• Funding is calculated by project participant
• IFS will advise the maximum grant % you can request based upon your
answers to:
• Type (and size) of organisation
• Research category defined by the lead applicant in the Application Details
section of the application

30. Funding dependent upon type of organisation
Organisation /
Type of Activity
Technical Feasibility
Studies and Industrial
Research
Experimental
Development
Notes
Business
(economic activity)
Micro/Small – 70%
Medium – 60%
Large – 50%
Micro/Small – 45%
Medium – 35%
Large – 25%
Research
Organisation
(non-economic
activity)
Universities – 100% (80% of
Full Economic Costs)
Other research
organisations can claim
100% of their project costs
– see note:
Other research organisations must:
• be non-profit distributing and
• disseminate the project results &
• explain in the application form how this will be done
Public Sector
Organisation or
Charity
(non-economic
activity)
100% of eligible costs Must be:
• Be performing research activity &
• disseminate project results & explain in the application form how
this will be done
• ensure that the eligible costs do not include work / costs already
funded from other public sector bodies

31. Academic Partners

32. Why Je-S?
• We use the Research Councils’ Joint Electronic Submission System (Je-S) to collect
academic finances
• The Je-S system automates the collection of Full Economic Costs (FEC) based costs
from academic partners and tells them exactly what numbers should be used in
the application form for their costs
• Also to collect project finance details from non-HEIs (e.g. RTOs) that are claiming
they are carrying out academic quality work and want to be funded on an FEC
basis
• Using Je-S means that Innovate UK follows standard Research Council guidelines
on funding universities and enables Research Councils to easily co-fund Innovate
UK projects

33. • Enter the TSB reference
number here
• Enter the TSB
Contribution column
figures from your J-eS
output document into
the project costs section
of the application
• Upload the Je-S with
council status form as a
PDF at the bottom of the
screen
Project costs – academic partners

34. Normal Je-S application elements
• Not just the financials
• E.g. Justification of resources
• E.g Pathways to impact
• Full details on the Je-S system
• Queries about Je-S via the Je-S Helpdesk
• JeSHelp@rcuk.ac.uk
• 01793 444164

35. Submitting your application

36. Project cost summary
All organisations can see a summary of project costs
Ensure the highlighted
costs fits the criteria for the
competitions:
Feasibility and industrial:
below £500k, or £50k for
market research projects
Large collaborative:
between £2m-£10m

37. Checking your finances are complete
• IFS checks
• all organisations have marked
their finances as complete
• research organisation
participation is no greater than
30% for large collaborative
projects or 50% for feasibility
and industrial research projects
of the total project costs
IFS does not validate your project costs

38. Submit your application early!
Submit your application early!

39. Assessment

40. cation Assessment
• All applications are assessed by independent assessors drawn from industry and academia
• What do they look for?
• Clear and concise answers
• The right amount of information
• not too much detail
• no assumptions
• Quantification and justification
• A proposal that presents a viable opportunity for growth, a level of innovation that
necessitates public sector investment and has the right team and approach to be
successful
Keep your assessors engaged and
interested in your proposal. You
want them to be fascinated and
excited by your idea!

41. Application Assessment feedback
• The feedback is compiled using the written comments of the independent assessors who
review and assess the applications.
• It is intended to be constructive in nature and to highlight both the strong as well as the
weak areas of your application.
• Please bear in mind that because applications are assessed by a number of assessors, you
may receive information which appears to be conflicting. This may reflect their different
interpretations of the proposal that you submitted.
• It must also be noted that some proposals may appear to have been favourably assessed
based on their comments, in such instances it could be that your proposal simply fell below
the funding threshold, with others achieving a higher merit score overall.

42. Scoring
• We review scores and feedback to check assessors are adhering to our guidelines and
scoring fairly.
• In some cases, where we feel a score is unjust and not supported by feedback, we may
remove that score as an outlier and update the total score for the application.
• Please be aware that both low and high outliers may be removed and as a result scores may
increase or decrease.

43. Application Assessment
• The score spread shows the difference
between the top and bottom scores
• If score spread is 30 or more we will look
to see if an outlier is apparent
• If there is a 3 or more appear in either the
two columns Count of No Scope or Count
of No Recc’d we review the applications
feedback and if justified, the application
will not be eligible for funding.

44. • The green box highlights a particular assessors scores on an application
• The purple box highlights a set of scores for a particular question
• We look for a difference of 20 or more within the assessors total score to identify an outlier. At first glimpse we
would consider assessor 3 to be the outlier with a score of 62 but this must be backed up by the feedback
Identifying outliers

45. Assessor feedback

46. Interviews for large collaborative projects
• If you are invited to progress to interview:
• You can bring up to nine people to attend the interview
• You will have 30 minutes to present a maximum of 30 PowerPoint slides, with
no videos or embedded links
• There is a 30 minute Q&A session lead by members of the panel
• You will have an opportunity to respond to the assessor feedback so the panel
can read it prior to interview
• The response to feedback, presentations and presenters’ names have to be
provided ahead of the interview

47. Project setup for successful applicants

48. IFS for successful applicants
Project Set up:
• 8 steps to complete
• Applicable to all grant claiming partners
• Must be completed within 30 days
• Projects must start within 90 days or
funding may be withdrawn
• Confirmation of your bank account is
required to ensure we are paying the
correct organisation you may/will be asked
to provide a redacted bank statements to
confirm this
• Project change requests cannot be
submitted before the project starts

49. Project set up
• All grant claiming project partners will be required to complete project set up. To avoid delays
you should consider:
• Who will be the project manager?
• Who will be the finance contact for each consortium member?
• How will your consortium be set up? (if applicable)

50. Collaboration Agreement
• Original agreement signed by all participants
• Key Features:
• Who is in the Consortium?
• What are the aims, and how is the work divided up?
• Ownership of IPR
• Management of consortium
• Negotiating a Collaboration Agreement can be complex and time consuming. Start work on
this at an early stage in the process.

51. Grant claims and payments
• All grants are claimable quarterly in arrears
• Claims can only be made for costs incurred and paid between the project start and end dates
• Claims may be subject to an independent audit (including all academic partners) according to
grant size
• Claims are only paid once quarterly reporting and necessary audits are complete
• Projects over 6 months are monitored on a quarterly basis including a visit from the appointed
Monitoring Officer. Anything outside of this will be discussed on a case by case basis.
• The monitoring will be carried out against a detailed project plan and financial forecast

52. Project Change Requests (PCR)
• We are unable to process any PCR’s before the Grant Offer Letter is issued
• If a member of your collaboration has failed UID and is unable to resolve you will be
advised to withdraw and apply into the next round of the competition
• PCR’s will only be agreed and authorised by Head of Operational Delivery

53. Contact us:
• Customer Support Services: 0300 321 4357 (Mon-Fri, 9am-5:30pm)
• support@innovateuk.ukri.org
• Knowledge Transfer Network:
• https://ktn.innovateuk.org
• Innovate UK:
• https://www.gov.uk/government/organisations/innovate-
uk
Q&A – Application process and finances