Driving the Electric Revolution: Building Talent for the Future 2 - projects up to £50k

Innovate UK’s Driving the Electric Revolution challenge, part of UK Research and Innovation, will invest up to £4.5 million in projects building talent for the future.

The aim of this competition is to create and deliver course content and materials that will support skills, talent and training across Power Electronics, Machines and Drives (PEMD) manufacturing and supply chains. The purpose of this is to build awareness of PEMD and fill key gaps in the UK’s workforce talent and training capabilities.

Opportunities could include but are not limited to:

• schools’ engagement
• apprenticeships and internships
• upskilling and reskilling of existing workforce
• technical courses and vocational training
• undergraduate, postgraduate and continuing professional development (CPD)

Your proposal must deliver a clear, game-changing intervention and address a clear industrial requirement. This must realistically and significantly meet and provide a long-term commitment to supporting the UK PEMD industry talent requirement.

Your project must:

• have total project costs of no more than £50,000
• start by 1 October 2022
• last between 6 and 12 months
• carry out its project work in the UK
• intend to exploit the results from or in the UK

To lead a project or work alone your organisation must be a UK registered business of any size, research organisation, research and technology organisation (RTO), academic institution, charity, not-for-profit, or public sector organisation.

You must demonstrate clear industrial support for your application, covering a cross section of technologies and sectors, and must work in, or have strong industrial ties with the PEMD sector.

An organisation can only lead on one application but can be included as a collaborator in a further 2 applications across both strands of the competition. If an organisation is not leading any application, it can collaborate in up to 3 applications across both strands of the competition.

Scope

This competition is to create and deliver course content and materials that will support skills, talent and training across PEMD manufacturing and supply chain; building awareness of PEMD and filling key gaps in the UK’s workforce talent and training capabilities.

Your project must demonstrate:

• strong industrial links and a well-defined industry focus
• an understanding and awareness of the PEMD industrial skills that are currently lacking and possible future requirements to enable the workforce
• an innovative, ambitious and realistic idea to meet a significant PEMD talent requirement
• planning for, and commitment to, creating and maintaining the resource on an ongoing basis for a minimum period of 3 years after project completion
• that you will provide new opportunities not already available to the UK, a region or group of underrepresented people
• that it has the capacity and capability to be delivered successfully and on time
• value for money and evidence a return on investment, in terms of trained, upskilled and reskilled people
• compatibility with the PEMD Skills Hub

You can:

• produce content and material for outreach, engagement and learning purposes
• conduct PEMD outreach and engagement exercises to individuals, academia, industry and other groups
• generate and deliver course material or facilitate the running of courses
• provide training or incentives for training to specific groups of underrepresented people or in specific training subjects

This list is not intended to be exhaustive.

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

• defining and filling key gaps in the UK’s PEMD manufacturing and supply chain workforce and training capability
• producing industry compatible training programs in PEMD
• promoting skills in design for manufacture and design for assembly
• increasing interaction between academia or training establishments and industry to ensure skills streams for the future, including apprenticeships, internships, sandwich courses
• delivering academic courses or practical training areas such as: schools’ engagement, upskilling and reskilling of existing workforce, technical courses and vocational training, undergraduate, postgraduate and continuing professional development (CPD)
• improving the quality and capacity of existing training delivery
• outreach and engagement material focusing on PEMD for all ages and levels in academia and industry
• supporting and promoting equality, diversity, and inclusion within PEMD technology training, manufacturing, or research
• providing training or incentives for training to specific underrepresented groups of people or in specific training subjects

An online briefing event was run by KTN on 7th March 2022: click here to watch the recording.

If you want help to find a project partner, contact Sven Knowles, KTM Electronics.