CAM Pathfinder: Feasibility studies 2

To lead a collaborative project your organisation must be one of the following:

• a UK registered business of any size
• a local authority
• a transport authority

To work alone your organisation must be a UK registered business of any size.

If the lead organisation is a local authority or a transport authority, it must collaborate with at least one grant claiming business.

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)

To be an eligible collaboration, you must ensure that no one partner accounts for more than 70% of the eligible costs. The collaborating organisations must be separate legal and non-linked entities.

Your project must:

• have a grant funding request of between £100,000 and £250,000
• last between six and nine months
• not start before 1 April 2026
• end by 31 March 2027

Any funded organisation must carry out their project work in the UK and must intend to exploit the project results in the UK.

The aim of this competition is to fund feasibility studies for early commercial Connected and Automated Mobility (CAM) opportunities. Successful projects are expected to enable organisations to create business cases for deployment opportunities in high value areas.

Business cases must be sufficiently detailed to allow investment decisions or must highlight existing barriers which prevent this. Proposed deployments must operate commercially without safety drivers at a specified location in the UK.

Your project must:

• result in a detailed business case enabling a decision either to invest in the project, and therefore the UK, or show clearly the additional steps and measures required to allow the decision
• focus on opportunities that could operate commercially without safety drivers at a specified location in the UK, quantifying the job opportunities in the operation of the CAM service and productivity benefits to the economy
• evidence the impact, and potential opportunities, for the UK CAM supply chain and where appropriate highlight opportunities to exploit linkages to technology developers
• deliver a detailed closeout report to present at a closeout meeting with Zenzic to review the business case, its outcomes and next steps, prior to closure and payment of the final claim
• be led by an organisation looking to deploy a vehicle service into an operational environment, or led by an operator who will be operating and running the CAM service
• engage with necessary regulatory bodies to ensure both industry and regulators remain well informed
• engage with technology developers to ensure market readiness of the technologies to be deployed in the business case
• include in your closeout report, gaps in UK technology providers for the proposed service

Limited technology trials or development are permitted only to support the investigation toward the feasibility of the service or provide data to the business case, when it is not available through other means.

Terminology in your application must comply with the meanings detailed in the BSI Flex 1890 v6.0:2025-03 Connected and Automated Mobility (CAM) – Vocabulary.

Your project must focus on one or more of the following:

• off-highway vehicles and services without public access
• freight and logistics vehicles and services
• personal mobility vehicles and services
• public transport vehicles and services
• specialist service vehicles, for example, road sweepers, refuse trucks

Innovate UK Business Connect will hold a briefing webinar on Monday 13 October, 2-3:30pm: click here to register for a webinar place. A recording will be available afterwards.

If you would like help to find a collaboration partner, contact Innovate UK Business Connect’s Transport team.