Seamless Trade Across Borders Challenge with Leonardo UK

• Applicants must be eligible to receive £100,000 in State Assistance (further details can be found in the Competition T&Cs).
• Applicants must have a UK business bank account for any payments to be made.
• Applicants must be a UK based registered company, or prove they have an establishment in the UK and undertake the majority of the activity in the UK.
• Applicants must be considered as either an early-stage company or scaleup business with a proposed solution/ product/ service at the Technology Readiness Level 5-7 (TRL 5-7).
• Build an MVP against the chosen industrial challenge working together with the Industry Challenge Owner.
• Provide a minimum Co-investment of £10,000 (“Co-investment”) There are various categories of Co-investment which can be considered. The Co-investment covers the value for money and cost to deliver the technology solutions. Please refer to the FAQs to find further information on what Co-investment we are looking for. Applicants are required to submit a document demonstrating details of the Co-investment when the application is submitted (Digital Catapult will provide a template for completion).
• The team must be able to attend all key events below (please note dates are subject to change):
  • Programme Kick-off event (in-person) – Nov 2025
  • Final Showcase event (in-person) – March 2026
• Attend the majority (80%+) of the workshops, progress check-in meetings/calls, and/or webinars hosted by the Digital Catapult Supply Chain Hub from
• Showcase tech solution developed in the programme – Digital Catapult does not take ownership of your Intellectual property developed on the programme, however we do require you to present your solution for the challenge at the Showcase event and other programme related activities.
• Applicants must develop solutions enabled by at least one of the technologies from the Advanced Digital Technology Stack: Artificial Intelligence, Immersive, Internet of Things, Distributed Ledger Technologies and 5G/Future Networks.
• Participant agrees to be visibly (name and logo) associated with the programme, whilst on the programme and afterwards as a former participant and beneficiary.  This includes marketing collateral, such as social posts, print and digital materials.

Note: Lead company

• You may enter as a collaborative team, but there must be a lead company that will contract with us and get paid.
• All other collaborators involved must be named in the application process. It is the responsibility of the lead company to arrange any collaboration agreements or subcontracts as necessary and to comply with the International Supply Chain Accelerator terms and conditions.
• Your collaborators may be with international companies.
• You can be named as a collaborator on more than one application but can only be a ‘lead’ company once.
• We may carry out due diligence on the lead and any collaboration companies so they must be willing to submit documentation upon request (including but not limited to, bank account statements for the business and personal references).

• Funding – £150,000 in grant funding to develop a challenge focused MVP/demonstration and supporting material
• Industry partnerships – Work with Leonardo UK to build and expand relationships across key stakeholders within the UK’s aerospace and defence sector
• Validation & visibility – Test and demonstrate your technology solution in a real-world environment
• Other benefits – Networking opportunities, peer-to-peer learning and the opportunity to pitch the solution at the accelerator showcase event in 2026

International trade remains heavily dependent on paper-based processes and fragmented digital systems, creating significant barriers to efficient commerce. Despite advances in digital technology, the global trade ecosystem has been slow to modernise. Leonardo UK is exploring the opportunity to modernise and digitise its trade compliance processes.

Leonardo UK is looking to test and validate a digital trade compliance solution in a sandbox or trial deployment environment. The focus is establishing a comprehensive understanding of integration pathways, with particular emphasis on IT team engagement throughout the process.  The goal is to explore how a solution can effectively integrate into Leonardo’s systems, support import/export compliance, improve reporting capabilities, and demonstrate the feasibility of future deployment.

Key issues the solution should address include:

Data fragmentation & manual processing

• Trade compliance data is stored across multiple, unconnected systems.
• Processes such as customs declaration preparation are highly manual, prone to duplication, and time-consuming.

Lack of real-time compliance visibility

• Limited tools for real-time tracking of regulatory changes or aligning inputs with up-to-date legislation.
• Risk of compliance errors due to lag in awareness or misinterpretation of trade regulations.

System integration & security

• A better pathway is needed for integrating new tools into Leonardo’s IT environment to support digital innovation.
• Any deployed solution must meet high security standards and navigate firewall, data access, and control challenges.

Manual processing & reporting

• Processes such as customs declaration preparation are highly manual, prone to duplication, and time-consuming.
• Teams rely on manual data compilation from multiple sources to generate compliance and performance report

• Technology readiness: Advancement of technical solution from at least TRL 5 (technology basic validation in a relevant environment) to TRL6 (technology prototype demonstration in a sandbox environment)
• Sandbox testing: Functional testing using real or dummy data, with user feedback and input from key stakeholders to refine future system requirements and functionality
• Deployment roadmap: Documented route to deployment with detailed implementation plan, including IT security and data governance considerations
• Integration specifications: clear integration pathway with existing systems such as SAP. Includes recommendations to improve or replace legacy systems where viable.
• Reporting framework: Design and functionality demonstration of automated reporting with minimal post-processing requirements

It is intended that the solutions of the tech innovators would leverage the cutting edge (but proven) technology available in the industry where possible and appropriate, resulting in good outcomes. These technology areas are (including but not limited to): Artificial Intelligence; Distributed Ledger Technology; Advanced (Distributed) Identity Solutions; IoT etc.

Therefore, the tech innovators should highlight which specific technologies they are proposing to use in the solutions that would result in maximising the desired outcomes. The explanation should also highlight why such advanced technology is appropriate in the particular context.

If you wish to apply for the Seamless Trade Across Borders Challenge with ICC with the same technology solution, please make this clear in your application. If an organisation wishes to apply with more than one technology solution, please submit an additional application form per solution.

Should you require any assistance with the application you can reach out to DSCHopencalls@digicatapult.org.uk to explore the suitability of your idea for the challenges.