SBRI: Healthy Ageing Social Ventures industrial research
Organisations can apply for a share of £3 million inclusive of VAT to develop products and services to support healthy ageing, for projects of £50k-£150k.
This is a Small Business Research Initiative (SBRI) competition funded by UKRI. The aim of the competition is to fund organisations to deliver social impact and address one or more of the 7 themes of the Healthy Ageing Challenge Framework.
UKRI will award up to £4 million inclusive of VAT across 2 strands. These are:
- Healthy Ageing Social Ventures Feasibility Studies (click here for details) for projects with costs up to £50,000
- Healthy Ageing Social Ventures industrial research for projects with costs from £50,000 to £150,000 for prototype development and evaluation (this strand)
This is phase 1 of a potential 2-phase competition. A decision to proceed with phase 2 will depend on the outcomes from phase 1, availability of further funding and assessment of a separate application into a subsequent phase 2 competition. Only successful applicants from phase 1 will be able to apply to take part in phase 2.
Any adoption and implementation of a solution from this competition would be subject to a separate, possible competitive, procurement exercise. This competition does not cover the purchase of any solution.
Projects must:
- start by 1 March 2022
- end by 29 February 2024
- have total eligible project costs from £50,000 to £150,000 inclusive of VAT
Projects can last up to 24 months.
Applicant
To lead a project, you must:
- be an organisation of any size
- work alone or with other organisations as subcontractors
- exist wholly to provide benefits for society
- have stated commitment to social outcomes for an identified set of beneficiaries related to your social or environmental mission
- have objects in your constitutional documents, which form a constitutional lock, that protect your social or environmental mission
- have a policy to distribute profits after tax so surpluses are used to achieve social or environmental impacts
In this strand, prototyping and evaluation contracts will be awarded from £50,000 to £150,000 inclusive of VAT, for each project up to 24 months.
Your application must have at least 50% of the contract value attributed directly and exclusively to research and development (R&D) services, including solution exploration and design. R&D can also include prototyping and field-testing the product or service. This lets you incorporate the results of your exploration and design and demonstrate that you can produce in quantity to acceptable quality standards.
R&D does not include:
- commercial development activities such as quantity production
- supply to establish commercial viability or to recover R&D costs
- integration, customisation or incremental adaptations and improvements to existing products or processes
The aim of this competition is to enable businesses with a social purpose to develop and deliver innovative products and services.
Your project must:
- address one or more of the 7 themes identified by the Healthy Ageing Challenge Framework to support people as they age
- identify a clear route to market, scalability and sustainability for your product or service
- have a clearly identified and existing lead customer
- demonstrate the technical, development and market feasibility of your proposed innovation
- describe how your innovation is addressing critical social or environmental challenges
- demonstrate a causal link between your business activities and achievement of your declared social or environmental impact
- describe how all social impact will be measured, evidenced, and reported
- outline your commitment to specific social outcomes, clearly identifying beneficiaries related to your social or environmental mission
- explain how any profits after tax will be distributed so surpluses are used to achieve future social or environmental impacts
- establish ongoing collaboration between all members of the project team
- formalise any required ethical approvals, data sharing agreements and contracts
Products and services benefitting the general public must be accessible without restrictions and barriers such as affordability.
You must demonstrate a credible and practical route to market, so your application must include a plan to commercialise your results.
Specific themes
Your project can focus on one or more of the following 7 themes from the Healthy Ageing Challenge Framework:
- living well with cognitive impairment
- sustaining physical activity
- maintaining health at work and work in later life
- managing the common complaints of ageing
- design for age-friendly homes
- creating healthy active places
- supporting social connections
An online briefing event will be held via Zoom at 2.30pm on Tuesday 3rd August: click here for a joining link.
If you want help with connecting to others in the sector, contact KTN’s Health team.