Funding Competition: Transport Decarbonisation Demonstrators – UK

Innovate UK, part of UK Research and Innovation, will work with the Department for Transport (DfT) to invest up to £2 million in innovation projects.

These projects will demonstrate innovative solutions which support the decarbonisation of transport systems within a local area.

The aim of this competition is to support innovative R&D solutions that can demonstrate the potential to:

• reduce transport carbon emissions in local areas
• facilitate collaboration between Local Authorities (LA) and businesses

Your proposal must:

• detail the potential to reduce carbon and other harmful emissions from the existing local transport network
• demonstrate the consideration of a place-based approach and how the solution proposed best meets the needs and attributes of the selected demonstration area
• identify the Local Authority capacity to support and be involved with the project
• illustrate how the innovation activity fits in with, and will support local strategies or plans, such as a Local Authorities’ Local Transport Plan (LTP) or Net Zero strategy
• provide evidence of Local Authority senior leadership or senior level support for the proposed activity
• detail how the solution will be demonstrated

Project Size

• Your project’s total grant funding request must be between a minimum of £100,000 to a maximum of £500,000.

Projects they will not fund

• They are not funding projects that are:
  • looking solely at data gathering
  • focusing on large scale infrastructure and not considering a place-based approach
  • maritime projects including shipping and ports
  • based on developing airport infrastructure or urban airports
  • solely focused on on-vehicle developments
  • using vehicles which are not zero-emission
  • using vehicles are that over 7.5 tonne that do not support passenger transport, local authority operations or emergency services
• 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

Who can apply?

• Your project
  • Your project must:
    • start on 1 June 2024
    • end by 31 March 2025
    • last between 6 to 10 months
    • carry out all of its project work in the UK
    • intend to exploit the results from or in the UK
    • involve a minimum of two collaborative grant claiming partners
• Lead organisation
  • To lead a project your organisation must be a UK registered business of any size.
• Project team
  • To be an eligible collaboration, the lead must collaborate with a minimum of at least one grant claiming Local Authority (LA) as part of their project team.
  • The term Local Authority includes, county councils, district councils, unitary authorities, metropolitan districts and London boroughs. Regional collaborations coordinated through bodies such as combined authorities are also eligible.
  • Associated transport bodies such as local transport authorities, integrated transport authorities and sub-national transport authorities will also be eligible. In addition to this, they are allowing National Parks to also apply as a considered LA.
  • In addition, you can also invite other collaborative partners. 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.
• 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 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 business can only lead on one application but can be included as a collaborator in a further 2 applications.

For more information, visit Innovate UK.