Net Zero Mobility Programme: Feasibility Studies for Optimal Data Exchange (United Kingdom)

As part of the Future Economy Net Zero programme, this competition will focus on digital technologies. This programme will support the government’s drive for zero emission transport and systems as part of the net zero commitment for 2050.

The aim of this competition, as part of the Innovate UK funded net zero mobility programme, is to understand and overcome the barriers for data sharing or data exchanging in transport.

Specific Themes

• Your project must focus on one or more of the following transport sectors:
  • Maritime
    • All sizes and categories of vessel are in scope including commercial and leisure vessels.
  • Rail
    • All locomotive classes are in scope including passenger and freight carrying services.
  • Automotive
    • All vehicle classes are in scope, including on and off-road vehicles, construction vehicles, special use vehicles for example emergency vehicles such as ambulances and fire engines, refuse collection vehicles and recreational vehicles for example motor homes.
  • Aviation
    • Drones, unmanned aircraft systems (UAS), advanced air mobility (AAM), civil aerospace.
  • Micromobility
    • All classes of micromobility solutions are in scope.
  • Active Travel
    • All modes are in scope including walking, wheelchair use and cycling.

Funding Information

• Up to £3 million has been allocated to fund innovation projects in this competition. Funding will be in the form of a grant.
• If your organisation’s work on the project is commercial or economic, your funding request must not exceed the limits below. These limits apply even if your organisation normally acts non-economically but for the purpose of this project will be undertaking commercial or economic activity.
• For feasibility studies, you could get funding for your eligible project costs of:
  • up to 70% if you are a micro or small organisation
  • up to 60% if you are a medium sized organisation
  • up to 35% if you are a large organisation
• Research participation
  • The research organisations undertaking non-economic activity as part of the project can share up to 30% of the total eligible project costs. If your consortium contains more than one research organisation undertaking non-economic activity, this maximum is shared between them. Of that 30% you could get funding for your eligible project costs of up to:
    • 80% of full economic costs (FEC) if you are a Je-S registered institution such as an academic
    • 100% of your project costs if you are an RTO, charity, not for profit organisation, public sector organisation or research organization
• Your project’s total costs must be no more than £250,000. There is no minimum total project cost.

Project Scope

• They will fund collaborative feasibility studies covering the optimal sharing of data or the exchanging of transport data. You project must demonstrate significant improvements in overcoming the barriers to the sharing or exchanging of data. These include:
  • lack of incentives to share data
  • lack of knowledge
  • lack of data standards
  • commercial, ethical, and reputational risks
  • legal and regulatory risks
  • costs of data access
  • security and privacy
• You are encouraged to apply your knowledge and capability to adjacent transport sectors. Your project can demonstrate the data exchange between any mode of transport, either within a mode or across different modes, for example just within maritime or across micromobility and rail transport modes.
• Your project must:
  • demonstrate a need for data sharing for example a data owner or a problem owner
  • demonstrate what a potential data sharing or data exchange platform might look like and how it might operate in a viably economic manner, this can include aspects of cyber security and privacy as well as other economic considerations
  • explain how you will engage potential end users to develop a commercially viable use case and examine how to commercialise data, either through a brokerage or through some other mechanism
• Your project can address:
  • the mapping of the value chain for data
  • the quality of data
  • validation of data
  • validation of data users
  • how to address the source of data
  • how to build a platform to enable the effective sharing or exchanging of data
  • data security

Ineligible Funding

• They are not funding projects that:
  • subsidise the cost to access data
  • create databases
  • create data for databases
  • involve hardware development
  • involve data sharing or exchanging between platform sensors, for example inputs from multiple and different types of sensor on a car
• 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
  • Your project must:
    • have total project costs of no more than £250,000
    • last between 6 months and 9 months
    • carry out all of its project work in the UK
    • intend to exploit the results from or in the UK
    • start by 1 May 2024
    • end by 31 January 2025
  • This competition has a fixed spending term and all grant funding must be claimed by 31 March 2025.
• Lead organisation
  • To lead a project you organisation must:
    • be a UK registered business of any size, academic institution, research and technology organisation, charity, not for profit organisation or public sector organisation
    • collaborate with other UK registered organisations
    • include a grant claiming business within your consortium
• 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)
• 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
  • An organisation can lead on any number of applications and can be included as a collaborator in any number of applications.
  • If you are involved in more than one application, you must provide evidence that you can deliver more than one project at the same time.

For more information, visit Gov.UK.