UK registered businesses can apply for a share of up to £20 million to respond to new and urgent needs in UK and global communities during and following the Covid-19 pandemic.
- Competition opens: Friday 3 April 2020
- Competition closes: Friday 17 April 2020 12:00pm
Your proposal
Your application must demonstrate:
- a clearly innovative and ambitious idea, which would realistically and significantly meet a societal need that has emerged or increased due to the Covid-19 pandemic or the need of an industry that has been severely impacted and/or permanently disrupted
- that you have the capacity and capability to deliver the project successfully and on time during the working restrictions of Covid-19
- the ability to start your project no later than June 2020
- value for money
Specific themes
We are interested in solutions, which tackle the new or emerging societal or industry needs in the wake of the Covid-19 pandemic, including but not exclusively:
- community support services
- couriers and delivery (rural and/or city based)
- education and culture
- entertainment (live entertainment, music, etc.)
- financial services
- food manufacture and processing
- healthcare
- hospitality
- personal protection equipment
- remote working
- retail
- social care
- sport and recreation
- transport
- wellbeing
We are also interested in projects which are both in scope and aligned to the Industrial Strategy Challenge Fund (ISCF) challenges.We are looking to fund a portfolio of projects, across a variety of technologies, markets and applications.
Projects we will not fund
We will not fund proposals that:
- do not meet the competition eligibility or scope
- cannot be undertaken within the working restrictions of Covid-19
- do not evidence the potential for their proposed innovation to lead to significant and positive economic and/or societal impact, or value for money that will be achieved
- are resubmissions of previous Innovate UK applications
- are focused on aquaculture and fisheries, road freight transport or the production of agricultural products (due to de minimis restrictions)
- would directly duplicate other UK Government activities already underway regarding the current Covid-19 healthcare situation, such as, ventilators and vaccines
- do not address in their response how any potentially negative outcomes (e.g. on the environment) would be considered