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Circular Economy for SMEs – Innovating with the NICER Programme (UK)

Deadline: 8-Dec-21

Innovate UK has announced the applications for Circular Economy for SMEs – Innovating with the NICER Programme.

This funding forms part of the UKRI National Interdisciplinary Circular Economy Research programme (NICER), enabling SMEs to engage with and benefit from access to expertise at five research centres via collaborative research and development (CR&D) activities.

The aim of this competition is to support feasibility studies, industrial research and experimental development that address the challenges of transitioning to a circular economy.

They aim to fund projects with direct or indirect commercial outcomes for the partners. For example, a project to improve understanding where the outputs would be made freely available to build the knowledge base of the broader NICER programme, would be in scope.

Your project can focus on one or more of the following examples:

  • piloting the introduction of a circular economy business model
  • development or improvement of products and processes to enable remanufacturing, repair and retention of value
  • increasing understanding and exploitation of material flow data in a defined place (for example; city, Local Enterprise Partnerships (LEP), cluster, region)
  • scaling-up of credible circular economy feasibility studies
  • evaluating whether proposed circular economy approaches are more sustainable when considering broader life cycle thinking

Specific Themes

Your project must align with at least one of the resource flows covered by the Interdisciplinary Circular Economy Centres:

  • chemicals (specifically Olefins)
  • textiles
  • metals
  • technology metals
  • mineral-based construction materials

Funding Information

Your project’s total eligible costs must be between £50,000 and £100,000.

Eligibility Criteria

  • Your project must:

    • have total eligible costs between £50,000 and £100,000
    • start no earlier than 1 April 2022
    • end by 31 March 2023
    • last between 9 and 12 months
    • carry out all of its project work in the UK
    • intend to exploit the results from or in the UK
  • Lead organisation

    • To lead a project or work alone your organisation must be a UK registered micro, small or medium-sized enterprise (SME) business.
    • Academic institutions cannot lead or work alone.
  • Project team

    • To collaborate with the lead, your organisation must be one of the following UK registered:

      • business of any size
      • academic institution
      • charity
      • not-for-profit
      • public sector organisation
      • research and technology organisation (RTO)

Ineligible

They are not funding projects that are:

  • dependent on export performance – for example giving a subsidy to a baker on the condition that it exports a certain quantity of bread to another country
  • dependent on domestic inputs usage – for example giving a subsidy to a baker on the condition that it uses 50% UK flour in their product

For more information, visit Innovate UK.

 

For more information, visit https://apply-for-innovation-funding.service.gov.uk/competition/1021/overview