Competition Briefing Event: Innovation in Time Dissemination & Application

Up to £2 million is available for business-led innovation in the dissemination and application of resilient time, frequency and synchronisation (TFS). Innovate UK and the National Physical Laboratory (NPL) are hosting a briefing event in collaboration with KTN on the 20th of April 2021 to provide you with all the information you need to apply for this funding. The briefing webinar will take place between 10:00 – 12:00 and will be followed by a matchmaking session from 13:00 – 17:00. Both these sessions will be held online.

Find the slides here.

This is the first of two competitions with a total budget of £6.7 million. This first round of funding is for feasibility studies from 4-6months duration with total project costs between £50,000 and £250,000. The following round will offer the opportunity for demonstration projects.

This investment is being delivered by Innovate UK, part of UK Research and Innovation, together with the National Physical Laboratory (NPL). It is funded by the Strategic Priorities Fund (SPF) as part of the National Timing Centre programme, led by NPL.

Who is the competition open to?

This opportunity is for business-led, single or collaborative projects, which must be led by a UK registered business. Partners can be UK research organisation, research and technology organisations, academic institutions, public sector organisation or charities.

It is relevant to TFS applications in any sector. Example sectors include but are not limited to, telecommunications, energy, autonomy, finance, smart factories, sensors, the Internet of Things (IoT), broadcast, health, space, and transport including rail, road, aviation, maritime.

Projects involving cross-sector technologies, such as those contributing to telecommunication technologies or timing over digital networks, are of particular interest, as are projects that include one or more industry sectors.

Please note, we are not funding projects that are exclusively related to atomic clock development or Global Navigation Satellite Systems (GNSS). However, projects which involve atomic clock and GNSS integration into timing systems would be in scope.

What will the competition include?

The competition will:

• Support and enable industry-led innovation across the UK supply chain in resilient time, frequency and synchronisation (TFS) including for the development of products, services and end user applications
• Develop a TFS ecosystem and capability for all relevant industries and critical national infrastructure
• Disrupt and create new markets to improve the provision of TFS

During the project, NPL’s time and frequency experts will offer:

• Free technical consultancy of up to 12 hours
• Free access to highly accurate and traceable time and frequency signals from four locations in the South East of England. These will include an experimental test facility and validation and characterisation capabilities

The key areas for development will be:

• Distribution
• Trust, assurance and security
• Resilience

Competition details and timeline

You can find the full details of the competition here. Applications will be accepted from the 19th of April 2021 until the 9th of June 2021. Following your submission, you will be notified of your application status by the 30th of July 2021.

Meeting Mojo: Online networking will be on offer from 1-5pm on 20th April using the Meeting Mojo platform. Delegates are strongly encouraged to register and take part in the 1:1 networking meetings. This will enable conversations with other attendees, as would be available during a physical event.