Funding for innovation
If your business is looking for funding to help with innovating, there are a variety of funding programmes for which you may qualify.
One of the best places to start, especially to get the most up-to-date information on what’s available, is Business Link Yorkshire—the region’s one-stop-shop for business information.
Innovation Vouchers Available
Funded by Yorkshire Forward, and delivered by Business Link Yorkshire, the Innovation Voucher Scheme provides small to medium size businesses (SMEs) in the region, with the support to engage with Yorkshire's universities and other academic institutions to help their business grow and develop. Vouchers up to the value of £3000 can be redeemed to fund the cost of this practical knowledge and expertise.
If you own or manage a small or medium sized business (up to 250 employees) and you have a business innovation idea that you want to develop, why not apply for an Innovation Voucher worth £3000? The vouchers will not only help companies develop specific pieces of innovation, they will potentially create lasting relationships between businesses and knowledge based institutions that will have a much more longer lasting innovation benefits for the region.
For further information on the innovation vouchers please visit www.businesslink.gov.uk/yorkshire/innovation.
NB. Innovation Vouchers form part of Solutions for Business, a highly-targeted, publicly-funded suite of products and services offering solutions to real business needs and tackling market failure.
Need a R&D grant?
Yorkshire Forward administers several R&D grants funded by the UK government and the European Commission, variously available to individuals, SMEs and large companies. There’s the DTI’s Grants for Research and Development (GRD) scheme, directed at SMEs, and the Yorkshire Forward Industrial R&D Awards for large companies (for the GRDs, contact us direct using the contact details on this page).
Additionally, the Technology Strategy Board is investing £20m of matched funding in UK manufacturing to help companies develop vital new research and development projects to help maintain and grow their international competitiveness.
Finally, RTC Yorkshire and RTC Northwest manage regional contact points to help local organisations access funding through the Seventh Framework Programme (FP7).
Collaborating with a university?
If you’re collaborating with a university, you may able to apply (together with the university) for a Collaborative Research and Development Grant, awarded by the Technology Strategy Board. Then there’s the European Commission’s Framework Programme 7 (FP7), which funds collaborative research and development. There are also other ways to fund working with higher education institutions. For example, some of the centres of Industrial Collaboration, have established knowledge transfer partnerships (KTPs) with client companies, which provide part-funding for the research project through a government grant. The CICs have also been able to obtain the support of the Manufacturing Advisory Service (MAS), which subsidises the cost of their consultancy time on a project with industry.
Yorkshire Forward and EPSRC Industrial CASE Awards 2009 - Call for Applications - deadline 3rd July 2009
Yorkshire Forward is pleased to announce that through their partnership with EPSRC the region has been allocated up to six Industrial CASE Studentships to award, for 2009. As such we are seeking applications from companies based within the Yorkshire and Humber region who may wish to apply for one these studentships in research areas that align with Yorkshire Forward’s strategic priorities for business innovation through collaboration with the knowledge base. These priorities have been identified to help implement the Regional Innovation Strategy and align with the priorities identified within EPSRC’s own Delivery Plan. We are particularly seeking applications from SMEs and also those companies that have not previously collaborated with EPSRC.
The Yorkshire Forward Industrial CASE Award Strategic Priority Areas are:
(i) Healthcare Technologies and Medical Devices
(ii) Advanced Materials
(iii) Intelligent Product and Process Design
(iv) Sustainability Science.
What are Industrial CASE Awards?
Industrial CASE (Collaborative Awards in Science & Engineering) Awards are three and a half year postgraduate awards allocated to companies to enable them to take the lead in defining, and arranging, projects, with an academic partner of their choice. The academic partner will be host to the Industrial CASE student.
The company is required to provide a cash contribution of a minimum of one third of the EPSRC contribution. This contribution is supplementary (in addition to) EPSRC's award. At present rates this equates to a minimum of approximately £21,765 over the duration of the project. The company must also commit to supporting the student and enabling them to spend at least three months, during the period of the award, at their business premises and pay any travel and subsistence costs the student accrues during this period.
For the 2009 awards, the earliest start date will be 1 October 2009.
How to Apply:
To apply for one of the six possible Industrial CASE Awards allocated to Yorkshire Forward, please complete the application form and e-mail as an attachment to Danielle Hankin at danielle.hankin@yorkshire-forward.com to arrive no later than 17:00 on Friday 3rd July 2009.
In addition to the quality of the proposal in addressing the points in the application form, criteria for selecting projects for an award include:
- Potential for exploitation of research results and the company’s capacity and commitment to exploit;
- Quality and breadth of the training which will be available to the student.
The order of priority for allocations to companies will be:
1) Small and Medium Business Enterprise (SME) with no prior EPSRC engagement
2) Other SME
3) Other non SME company with no prior EPSRC engagement
4) Other non SME company.
For further information contact:Dr Danielle Hankin, Engagement and Strategy Manager, Innovation at Yorkshire Forward on 0113 394 9658. Or for general enquiries about the EPSRC Industrial CASE scheme please contact EPSRC directly on IndustrialCASE@epsrc.ac.uk
Want to take academic work to market?
If you’re working in a university, and want to turn your research into a business, please visit our funding for enterprise page.
Contact
If you’d like to find out more about these issues, speak to a member of the Yorkshire Forward access to finance team:
John Millar
R&D Manger
(john.millar@yorkshire-forward.com)
If the contact you're looking for isn’t listed here, please visit our main contact page.
