Deadline: 31-Aug-20
The UK Government is delighted to announce a £1.5 million fund that is now open for applications for innovative projects in Artificial Intelligence / Data Science that address the challenges of COVID 19 and/or climate change.
Innovation Challenge Fund 2020 will fund innovative research and development projects in Artificial Intelligence / Data Science that propose tech led or tech enabled solutions to the greatest challenges of time: COVID 19 and climate change. This represents the UK and India’s commitment to work together to combat the pandemic and its impacts, and to ‘build back better’. The aim of the Innovation Challenge Fund is also to support the development of the Karnataka AI / Data Science Tech Cluster by promoting closer scientific collaboration between industry and academia, and by promoting links with international counterparts and centres of excellence, including in the UK. As such, proposals for research and development projects are invited from consortia made up of researchers and industry from India, and international counterparts, including the UK. Projects must be led by an Indian not-for-profit organisation. Projects can either develop original ideas or adapt successful technologies, techniques or processes from other fields.
UK Government is looking for proposals that meet the primary criteria of addressing the COVID 19 response/recovery and/or climate change/environmental protection and meet the following challenge areas:
- Healthcare (such as projects addressing C19 diagnosis; essential equipment or medicine supply lines, infectious disease containment and sanitation, or health data collection; med-tech that can build healthcare capacity in general)
- Environmental protection (such as projects addressing the causes and impacts of climate change, the detection of pollutant sources, waste management.)
- Water management (such as projects addressing waste, water sourcing and distribution in cities)
- Energy (such as projects addressing clean energy/renewables and carbon footprint reduction)
- Future mobility (i.e. solutions that can tackle the detrimental health effects caused by pollution, and answer the challenges of social distancing/containment especially in public transit in the wake of C19)
- Agriculture (such as predictive analytics of weather and cultivation patterns in geographies suffering the effects of climate change; food distribution systems in times of crisis)
- Increasing Access to Information (such as solutions for the gathering, curation and sharing of data that can support approaches fight the pandemic, or climate change)
- Other (they will consider proposals which do not fit into the categories provided the focus is on Artificial Intelligence / Data Science and solution supports response/recovery from COVID 19, or the climate change agenda.)
Funding Information
- UK Government expect to make at least 6 awards of up to £250,000 each, to fund research and development projects by consortia of researchers and industry from India, and international partners, including the UK.
- The grants are for projects lasting 12 months, with a proposed start in January 2021.
Eligibility Criteria
- Grants will be awarded to a lead organisation which must be an Indian not-for-profit organisation and should have the necessary FCRA clearances. Applicants must demonstrate collaboration with other organisations. Applicants will need to explain how their proposal will facilitate the development of partnerships between researchers, industry (including but not limited to start-ups, scale-ups and small & medium enterprises), and potentially NGOs, policymakers and practitioners in India and their International counterparts. Consortia must be composed as follows:
- Essential
- Indian university research department or research institute or academic institute
- Indian business (including but not limited to start-ups, scale-ups and small & medium enterprises)
- At least one of these organisations must have a base in Karnataka
- Desirable
- International business
- International university or research organisation
- Optional
- Indian or International non-commercial organisation
- Essential
- The lead organisation will be responsible for the overall management of the grant including control, disbursement and assurance of funds.
- All applicants will need to show that their proposed idea has a credible and practical route to market. Applicants must ensure they have considered and addressed requirements on Official Development Assisstance (ODA) and gender inequality.
For more information, visit https://www.events.great.gov.uk/ehome/ai-datascience-karnataka/About/