Global Business Innovation Programme in Taiwan - Smart Manufacturing

The Global Business Innovation Programme is structured around three main stages and each business will have a designated Innovate UK Business Growth innovation & growth specialist to support them for at least the duration of the offering, including developing a work plan to capitalise on the opportunities identified. The three main stages of the Global Business Innovation Programme are

• Get ready: A two-day workshop to build knowledge and understanding of the market and potential opportunities, including how to do business, cultural aspects, how to protect your IP, and training on how to better articulate your value proposition.
• Visit the market: Explore the opportunities first-hand through meetings with key companies, research organisations, and potential collaborators and partners, through pre-arranged meetings and organised matchmaking.
• Exploit the opportunity: An exploitation workshop and one-to-one support from an Innovate UK Business Growth innovation & growth specialist to help you follow up and maximise the opportunities identified through the programme.

To apply for this programme, you must:

• Be a UK based innovation-led company with ambitions to grow and internationalise
• Be a company with fewer than 250 employees
• Be CEO, Founder or senior decision maker and able to attend and complete all activities

A major International Benchmarking study covering Advanced Manufacturing and Materials confirmed Taiwan on a shortlist of key partner territories for the UK. Taiwan is a leading manufacturer by share of world manufacturing exports, a front runner in R&D expenditure, and a leader in patent applications in selected advanced manufacturing technologies.

The UK’s leading researchers and innovators want to collaborate with the best talent in the world, in the best facilities in the world, regardless of borders. These international collaborations lead to new advances and discoveries, pushing the frontiers of knowledge faster and further (UK Research and Development Roadmap).

In 2022 Innovate UK signed a 5-year Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) with the Department of Industrial Technology, Ministry of Economic Affairs of Taiwan. The main objective of this MoU is to support and promote bilateral and multilateral scientific R&D activities and in particular joint projects between the United Kingdom and Taiwan, and to facilitate collaboration opportunities. Smart manufacturing technology is one of the technology sectors specified in this MoU.

This MoU has provided a framework for future innovation collaboration between the UK and Taiwan. Alongside programmes such as GBIPs, this also includes annual bilateral collaborative R&D funding calls. Two have been launched to date between the UK and Taiwan with more planned for the future. Smart manufacturing technology remains a key scope area for these funding opportunities.

We are inviting applications from scaleup and high-growth companies enabling innovation in Advanced Manufacturing and Integrated Supply Chains to increase the efficiency, adaptability, and circularity of manufacturing operations. We are keen to support organisations in the following areas as outlined in the Innovate UK materials and manufacturing vision 2050:

• Materials for the future economy – the discovery, scaling, and accelerated adoption of advanced and sustainable materials, and the associated processing.
• Smart design – through-life and multidisciplinary design engineering with the support of digital tools to de-risk and prototype new ideas.
• Resilient supply chains – complete supply chain visibility, smart supply chains, and end-to-end supply chain integration.
• World-class production – flexible, automated, and adaptive manufacturing, productivity enhancement, and predictive maintenance.
• Longer in use & reuse, circular economy – sustainable consumption of resources and reuse, repair, recycling, remanufacture, and ultimate disposal of products and materials.

• Explore joint opportunities to do business with Taiwan
• Find potential innovation collaborators and partners
• Improve your company’s value proposition to global partners and investors

An application briefing event was held on the 15th October. The briefing recording for this event can now be accessed on request. To access the recording for this briefing event, please complete the request form here.

Application form can be found here.

• Closing date for applications: 3 November 2024
• Get Ready workshop: 22 – 23 January 2025
• Visit the market: 1 – 10 March 2025
• Exploit the opportunity workshop: 14 April 2025