Open call for Canada-UK Critical Minerals: Sustainability and Circularity

Deadline: 15 December 2023

UK registered organisations and Canadian SMEs can apply for a share of up to £5.4 million for joint R&D projects focused on driving circularity in critical minerals.

Innovate UK, part of UK Research and Innovation, will work with the National Research Council of Canada Industrial Research Assistance Program (NRC IRAP) to invest in innovation projects.

The aim of this competition is to support collaborative research and development (CR&D) through Canadian and UK partnerships, to assist the development and commercialisation of circular solutions for critical minerals.

Themes

Your proposal must focus on one or more of the following five themes:

Enhanced Circularity in Critical Minerals – Battery Systems
- Improving recovery or efficiency of recovery of critical minerals from battery systems, for example cobalt, nickel, lithium, manganese, from black mass
- Improving recovery or efficiency of recovery of new critical mineral streams from battery waste, for example graphite, silicon, phosphates
Enhanced Circularity in Critical Minerals – High Performance Permanent Magnets (HPPM)
- Safe and economic identification, collection, sorting, separation, dismantling of rare earth element (REE) containing end-of-life products
- Novel and sustainable routes for processing of recovered REE materials
Sustainable Use of Critical Minerals – Processing & Manufacturing
- Novel manufacturing methods and processes across the value chain (from mine to end-product for use in battery systems or high-performance permanent magnet applications) to enhance circularity and sustainability of critical minerals
Sustainable Use of Critical Minerals – Reduction in Use
- Novel approaches to reduce reliance on existing critical minerals
- Complete substitution of critical minerals and systems
Innovations in Environmental, Societal, Governance (ESG) for Critical Minerals
- Life Cycle Analysis (LCA) and sustainability models for LCA of critical minerals and systems
- Measurement and accounting for embedded carbon, radioactivity and other environmental and societal impacts of REE
- Provenance, for example material passports, digitization or traceability of critical minerals and systems

Project Size

The total grant funding request for all UK partners can be up to £400,000 for each application. NRC IRAP will provide a contribution of up to CA$500,000 to each eligible Canadian SME participating in the project.

Projects they will not fund

They are not funding projects that are:

focused on end application performance, for example, performance of batteries in electric vehicle (EV) cars or performance of HPPM in motors or drives
focused on the improvement in properties or performance in final use, for example, improving charge density in batteries or magnetic properties in HPPM
focused on minerals or elements that are not listed in either of the UK critical minerals strategy (either high priority or ‘watch’ list) or Canadian Critical Minerals strategy
innovations without a clear focus on improving circularity and sustainability in critical minerals supply chains

Who can apply?

Your project
- Your project must:
  - have a grant funding request of no more than CA $500,000 allocated to each eligible Canadian SME
  - start by 1 September 2024
  - end by 31 August 2026
  - last between 12 and 24 months
- Projects should have a balanced contribution of the total eligible project costs among the partners from the UK and Canada.
Canada specific rules
- Canadian funding applicants who do not complete an EoI and have not been invited to proceed will not be eligible for funding through this competition.
- Canadian SMEs may only participate in one application either as a project lead or partner. If a Canadian organisation is leading the project this should be identified within your application.
UK lead applicant
- To start an application on the Innovation Funding Service (IFS), your organisation must be a UK registered business of any size.
- Your collaboration must involve at least one grant claiming UK registered SME and one eligible Canadian incorporated, profit orientated SME.
- Canadian organisations can be a project lead but cannot start an application on IFS. They must be added as a partner to the UK lead applicant. This is for system functionality reasons.
Project team
- To collaborate with the lead applicant, you must be one of the following:
  - UK registered business of any size
  - UK registered academic institution
  - UK registered research and technology organisation (RTO)
  - a Canadian incorporated, profit orientated small or medium-sized enterprise (SME)
  - National Research Council of Canada (NRC) researcher
  - Canadian university
  - Canadian research technology organization (RTO)
- Each partner organisation must be invited into the Innovation Funding Service by the UK lead applicant to collaborate on a project. Once accepted, partners will be asked to login or to create an account. UK registered organisations must enter their own project costs into the IFS. Canadian organisations do not enter their costs into IFS.
- To be an eligible collaboration, at least one eligible business from the UK must apply for funding when entering their costs into the application and partner with at least one eligible Canadian SME.
Non-funded partners
- Your project can include partners that do not receive any of this competition’s funding. Their costs will count towards the total project costs.
- Canadian project participants who are not eligible for funding, including large enterprises and industries, are welcome to collaborate as additional participants on a self‑funded basis or as subcontractors.
Subcontractors
- Subcontractors are allowed in this competition.
- For UK organisations, the cost of subcontractors is limited to no more than 20% of your organisation’s total eligible costs.
- All subcontractors must be selected through your usual procurement process.
- You can use subcontractors from the UK and Canada.
Number of applications
- A UK business can only lead on one application but can be included as a collaborator in one further application.
- A UK business that is not leading an application can collaborate on a maximum of two applications.
- A Canadian SME may only participate in one application.
- UK or Canadian research organisations can collaborate in any number of applications.