Deadline: 17 July 2024
UK registered organisations can apply for a share of up to £430,000 for feasibility study projects with Netherlands organisations, looking at UK – NL Green Shipping Corridor routes.
Innovate UK, part of UK Research and Innovation, will work with The Department for Transport (UK) and the Ministry of Infrastructure and Water Management (NL). A combined total of up to £860,000 will be invested in innovation projects. These projects will be to study Green Shipping Corridor routes between the UK and the Netherlands.
Innovate UK will fund UK partners to collaborate with Netherlands partners on feasibility study projects, over a six month period. UK registered businesses must collaborate with at least one Netherlands non-linked registered business applying under the equivalent Netherlands Enterprise Agency (RVO) competition programme. UK registered organisations must apply through the Innovation Funding Service (IFS) portal to Innovate UK. Your Netherlands partner will not receive any funding from Innovate UK.
Netherlands partners must apply to and will be funded by RVO for the Netherlands component of the project set out in this application. The aim of this competition is to fund innovative feasibility studies into routes that stimulate early adoption of promising long-term solutions to reach net zero emissions in shipping.
Your proposal must conduct a technical and economic feasibility study. UK participants must be part of an application submitted to Innovate UK. Netherlands partners must submit a parallel application to the RVO competition.
To qualify as a Green Shipping Corridor, you must plan for at least one net zero emission (well-to-wake) vessel to be transiting a route between the UK and the Netherlands. Your project must study the steps needed to achieve a Green Shipping Corridor on that route.
Your project must:
- underpin a future Green Shipping Corridor demonstration by delivering meaningful technology, route to market and supply chain innovations
- achieve market potential through a clear strategy for commercialising the technology and the products, demonstrating the potential for significant value to the UK and the Netherlands
- illustrate potential greenhouse gas emissions reduction that could be achieved by the future Green Shipping Corridor
- bring together a team with the necessary expertise and experience to successfully deliver the project objectives
At the end of your project, you must:
- produce a clear, detailed and costed plan for how your Green Shipping Corridor will be demonstrated in an operational setting in and between ports and on vessels, including your technical approach, objectives and business case
- estimate the annual additional costs of delivering the corridor, considering various market participants, for example: ship owners, ports, fuel or infrastructure suppliers, with clear plans to meet costs, covering both private and public funding sources
- estimate the direct and indirect environmental impacts from delivering the corridor, including impacts on greenhouse gas and air pollutant emissions
- estimate the scope for scaling up the number of zero-emission vessels and corresponding landside infrastructure, replicating the corridor elsewhere, and potential additional benefits to other routes and the wider fleet
- investigate potential scalable zero emission energy source options for the corridor, estimate the quantity of energy required each year, with a clear plan for how this would be produced, imported, distributed, stored and bunkered, and the conditions to mobilise and meet demand
Fuels in Scope of this Competition
The following fuels are in scope of this call.
- bio-methanol
- synthetic renewable LNG
- synthetic renewable methanol
- synthetic renewable ammonia
- green hydrogen
- renewable electricity
Project Size
- Your UK and NL project’s combined total costs must be between £50,000 (€58,000) and £250,000 (€292,000).
Who can apply?
- Your project
- Your project must:
- have no one country or project partner can represent more than 65% of the total project cost
- last up to six months
- undertake the majority of the project work in the UK and the Netherlands and intend to exploit the results from or in the UK and Netherlands
- start by 1 November 2024
- end by 30 April 2025
- Under current restrictions, the UK funding through Innovate UK will not fund any procurement, commercial, business development or supply chain activity with any Russian and Belarusian entity as lead, partner or subcontractor. This includes any goods or services originating from a Russian and Belarusian source.
- Your project must:
- UK lead applicant
- To start an application on the Innovation Funding Service (IFS), your organisation must:
- be a UK registered business of any size
- collaborate with at least one Netherlands registered organisation applying to the RVO programme, which must be a separate legal entity, not linked to the UK partners
- To start an application on the Innovation Funding Service (IFS), your organisation must:
- Project team
- All collaborations must include each of these organisations as a minimum, as part of the project:
- a UK port or harbour
- a Netherlands port or harbour
- a UK or Netherlands vessel owner or operator with a vessel operating on, or intending to operate on, a route between the Netherlands and the UK
- All collaborations must include each of these organisations as a minimum, as part of the project:
- UK project team can also include
- To collaborate with the lead applicant, 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 UK partner organisation must be invited into the Innovation Funding Service (IFS) by the lead to collaborate on a project. Once partners have accepted the invitation, they will be asked to login or to create an account in IFS.
- To collaborate with the lead applicant, your organisation must be one of the following UK registered:
For more information, visit Innovate UK.