Deadline: 10-May-23
UK registered SMEs are now invited to apply for a share of up to £2.5 million for industrial-led civil aerospace collaborative R&D projects.
Innovate UK, part of UK Research and Innovation, is working with the Aerospace Technology Institute (ATI) and the Department for Business and Trade on this competition.
A NATEP competition is held approximately every 6 months. This is the last call of 8 calls. For each call there is up to £2.5 million funding available. The announcement for next sets of NATEP competitions will be made in due course.
The aim of this competition is to provide help for micro, small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) to develop innovative aerospace technologies. These will enhance your capabilities and increase your ability to win new business.
Specific Themes
- Your project must have a potential application within the civil aerospace sector. This can include dual use technologies.
- Your proposal must align with the UK Aerospace Technology Strategy, ‘Destination Zero’, which is split into these areas:
- Zero-Carbon Emission Aircraft Technologies
- Zero-carbon emission technologies are focused on propulsion and infrastructure development to enable zero-carbon tailpipe emissions. This encompasses battery, hydrogen and fuel cell technologies, many of which are in early stages of development.
- Ultra-Efficient Aircraft Technologies
- Ultra-efficient technologies are focused on improving energy efficiency and hence impact CO2 emissions, NOx and noise. Continued development of crucial high value, sustainable, high productivity manufacturing technologies will position the UK to be a first-choice location for the industry.
- Cross-cutting Enabling Technologies
- To enable both the zero-carbon and ultra-efficient opportunities, the UK must develop cross-cutting enabling technologies and capabilities for whole aircraft design and analysis. These capabilities should extend to the aircraft lifecycle from design, through manufacture and assembly, operation, and end of life.
- Zero-Carbon Emission Aircraft Technologies
Funding Information
- Your project’s total costs must be between £150,000 and £300,000.
- Duration:
- End by 31 Mar 2025
- Last between 12 and 18 months
Projects they will not fund
- They are not funding projects that:
- focus solely on defence, space or other industrial sectors, but they will recognise dual use technologies providing the primary application is in civil aerospace
- focus on fundamental research, feasibility studies or experimental development
- are not in scope of the UK aerospace technology strategy
- They cannot fund 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
Eligibility Criteria
- Your project must:
- carry out all of its project work in the UK
- intend to exploit the results from or in the UK
- Projects in this competition are currently exempt from paying the industrial contribution to the Aerospace Technology Institute.
- Lead organisation
- To lead a project your organisation must:
- be a UK registered micro, small or medium-sized enterprise (SME)
- collaborate with other UK registered organisations
- plan to carry out a civil aerospace research or technology development project in the UK
- Academic institutions charities, public sector organisations, large businesses and RTOs cannot lead.
- To lead a project your organisation must:
- 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)
- Each partner organisation must be invited into the Innovation Funding Service by the lead to collaborate on a project. Once accepted, partners will be asked to login or to create an account and enter their own project costs into the Innovation Funding Service.
- To be an eligible collaboration, the lead and at least one other organisation must apply for funding when entering their costs into the application.
- To collaborate with the lead, your organisation must be one of the following UK registered:
- Non-funded partners
- Your project can include partners that do not receive any of this competition’s funding, for example non-UK businesses. Their costs will not count towards the total project costs.
- Subcontractors
- Subcontractors are allowed in this competition.
- Subcontractors can be from anywhere in the UK and you must select them through your usual procurement process.
- You can use subcontractors from overseas but must make the case in your application as to why you could not use suppliers from the UK.
- You must provide a detailed rationale, evidence of the potential UK contractors you approached, and the reasons why they were unable to work with you. They will not accept a cheaper cost as a sufficient reason to use an overseas subcontractor.
- All subcontractor costs must be justified and appropriate to the total project costs.
- Number of applications
- A UK registered SME can only lead on one application but can be included as a collaborator in a further 2 applications in this competition.
- If a UK registered business is not leading an application, it can collaborate in up to 3 applications in this competition.
- All other organisations can collaborate on any number of applications.
For more information, visit Innovate UK.