Deadline: 18-Jun-25
The Contracts for Innovation competition is funded by the Department for Science, Innovation and Technology, aims to fund activities in maturing and enabling the availability of CHERI (Capability Hardware Enhanced RISC Instructions) tools and software components for RISC-V embedded devices that implement the CHERI architecture extensions.
Scope
- The competition is supporting economic growth and societal resilience through accelerating the adoption and diffusion of the secure by design CHERI technology. The focus is on maturing and increasing the availability of the required tooling and software components for CHERI-enabled devices.
- They require projects to mature and make available tools and software components for use with CHERI-enabled devices. This could include porting and optimisation activities on:
- the Linux kernel and associated frameworks such as memory management, file system, network and inter-process communication
- application services frameworks and software components libraries used in embedded systems, such as various protocols and communications, storage and databases, identity and cryptography
- Real-Time Operating Systems (RTOS) and runtimes used within embedded systems such as FreeRTOS, Zephyr OS, Java, Docker, WebAssembly
- tools used by developers of software such as compilers, debuggers, profilers and core libraries.
Research Categories
- Prototype development and evaluation
- This can include prototyping, demonstrating, piloting, testing and validation of new or improved products, processes or services in environments representative of real-life operating conditions. The primary objective is to make further technical improvements on products, processes or services that are not substantially set.
Funding Information
- A total of up to £12 million, inclusive of VAT, is allocated to this competition across two stages. The funding budget is up to £4 million for stage 1 and up £8 million for stage 2.
- Contracts will be awarded to projects with total eligible costs between £200,000 and £1 million, inclusive of VAT, for stage 1 and up to £2 million inclusive of VAT, for stage 2.
Duration
- Projects must:
- Start by 1 September 2025 end by 31 March 2028
- Last between 6 and 31 months
Eligibility Criteria
- To lead a project, you can:
- be an organisation of any size
- work alone or with the subcontracted skills and expertise of others from business, research organisations, research and technology organisations, or the third sector (charities, social enterprises and voluntary groups)
- Applicant organisations must:
- have the knowledge and experience working with CHERI to undertake the proposed project
- have available platforms or environments to support the proposed project
Ineligibility Criteria
- They will not fund projects that:
- are not original in scope and duplicate someone else’s work
- develop tools or software components that would not otherwise be used by software developers
- develop tools or software components that cannot be used in the development of CHERI-enabled, RISC-V, embedded solutions and would not be applicable to enabling CNI use cases
- develop software that would be agnostic or minimally affected by the adoption of the CHERI technology
For more information, visit Gov.UK.