Notice

Questions and answers

Updated 6 December 2021

This notice was withdrawn on 15 July 2022

This grant fund is closed. The Knowledge Assets Grant Fund 2022 opened on 15 July 2022 and the final round will close on 15 December 2022.

The Knowledge Assets Grant Fund is now closed for applications. For updates on the programme, please get in touch at GrantFund.GOTT@beis.gov.uk.

1. Are universities or university-based organisations eligible to apply for these grants?

No. Eligible organisations are Central UK government departments, their partner organisations, arm’s length bodies and Public Sector Research Establishments (PSREs - These are research and development institutes sponsored directly by government departments or the seven UK Research Councils, such as certain government labs.) To be eligible the organisation must be headed by an Accounting Officer responsible for upholding Managing Public Money (MPM). These organisations are primarily those classified to the central government sector by the Office for National Statistics. This does not include universities.

2. Are NHS Foundation Trusts eligible for Grant Funding?

To be eligible for grant funding an organisation must be headed by an Accounting Officer responsible for upholding Managing Public Money (MPM). For Expand and Extend Grants, the Accounting Officer of the organisation must be available to sign a financial statement before the grant can be awarded. Our understanding is that this includes NHS Foundation Trusts, but we recommend checking within your organisation.

3. Will ownership of the Knowledge Asset / IP be affected by accepting grant funding?

BEIS will not receive, or expect to receive, any rights towards the Knowledge Asset as a result of grant funding. This will be made clear in the Grant Offer Letter and any other agreements.

BEIS will encourage effective management of the Knowledge Asset for the benefit of the UK. Our draft guidance on knowledge assets in government provides advice and support to organisations in considering best practices for knowledge asset management. It contains some information on ownership and will shortly be updated with a greater level of detail on this issue specifically. The final version of the guidance is expected later this year.

4. Can an eligible department subcontract work or partner with universities/other non-eligible organisations?

Yes, subject to the following conditions: i) ownership of the knowledge asset must remain wholly with the eligible organisation; ii) All subcontractor costs should be justified and appropriate to the total eligible project costs. It is the organisation’s responsibility to ensure compliance with public law and usual procurement practices. Any spend of the grant fund must follow the existing commercial arrangements of your organisation, and Crown Commercial rules. Transactions must be carried out at arm’s length, at market rates and with no element of collusion.

5. Is there a limit on the proportion of project activities which can be subcontracted?

No, so long as the conditions outlined in Q4 above are met.

6. Can non-UK organisations be involved in a project if led by an eligible UK-based organisation?

Please see answer to Q4 above. In addition, projects must adhere to Trusted Research Guidance.

7. Are projects eligible for funding if the Knowledge Asset is open-source or under an Open Government Licence and/or cannot be exploited for financial returns?

Yes. Financial benefits are only one kind of benefit the grant fund hopes to promote through enabling the development of Knowledge Assets. Certain Knowledge Assets will be of greatest benefit to the UK if they remain freely available. It is for the organisation responsible to decide how to get the best value - whether social, financial or economic - out of their Knowledge Asset. The April 2021 Mackintosh Report and the draft guidance provides further advice and support on how to maximise the social, economic and/or financial benefits of developed Knowledge Assets.

8. Can you provide examples of other projects you have funded or propose to fund?

This is a new fund, so we have no examples of previously funded projects. However, a range case studies detailing successful exploitation of public sector Knowledge Assets can be found in the 2021 Mackintosh report. These give a sense of the kinds of projects we are looking to support in their early stages.

9. What is the deadline for submitting applications?

Awards are granted on a first come, first served basis. Applications will be accepted until 31st December 2021 or until two weeks after 75% of funds are allocated, whichever comes first. When the funding pot drops below 75% (based on funds allocated, not funds drawn down) we will notify organisations that there is a 2 week deadline to complete any in-progress applications via a further email to Accounting Officers and an email to those on our fund cascade list. The panel will meet on a monthly basis and consider eligible applications which have been submitted by the end of the preceding month (please see answer to Q10 below). We encourage applicants to apply as soon as possible to avoid disappointment

10. From the time of submission, how long can applicants expect to wait for an outcome?

Panels are provisionally scheduled for the following dates: 13th October 2021; 8th November 2021; 17th December 2021 and 17th January 2022. Applications completed by the end of the month, with no major revisions required, will go to the following months panel if the project meets eligibility criteria. An eligible application completed by September 30th, for example, will be assessed at the mid-October panel. Applications completed between 1st October and 31st October, meeting eligibility requirements, will go to the November panel. We aim to communicate outcomes within 7 days of the panel.

11. What if the project I want to apply to fund is likely to go beyond March 2022?

All funded activities must be completed by the end of March 2022. If it is possible to split longer-term projects into discrete stages with distinct outputs, the first stage of which can be completed by the end of March 2022 then it is possible to apply just for this first project stage.

12. If applying for the first stage of a longer project, how detailed must funding plans for later stages be? Would follow on funding using this same scheme next year be possible?

An indication of options for where future funding for later stages could be obtained is needed, but it is not necessary to have this funding secured in advance. The availability of future rounds of this Grant Fund is still subject to Spending Review and will not be known until later this year. If available, we would welcome applications to the Grant Fund for later stages of projects funded this year but success this year would not guarantee success in future years.

13. The guidance states that the funded project must produce a demonstrable output. Given that ‘failing-fast’ is an acceptable outcome, what would be an acceptable output of projects which conclude the KA cannot be developed in this way?

A paper or report may be an acceptable project output. The output must appropriately reflect the funded activities undertaken.

14. What is the total size of the fund and how many projects do you expect to fund?

The total size of the fund this year is £2,000,000. Since we will be funding a range of project sizes, it is not possible to say how many projects we will fund, but we expect around 40.

15. In what circumstances will organisations be asked to prioritise their applications?

For the most part we are taking a first come, first served approach. However, in certain circumstances, we will ask individual organisations to prioritise if they have submitted multiple applications in order to promote a diversity of funded organisations in this test and learn year. This furthers our aim of promoting Knowledge Asset development across a broad spread of public sector organisations.

Organisations will be asked to prioritise applications if there are too many eligible applications for that month’s panel. The Panel will only be able to assess between 4-10 applications per month depending on the size of grants applied for. If a panel is oversubscribed for that month and there are multiple applications from single organisations, we will ask organisations to rank their already submitted applications, giving the ‘first-choice’ applications precedence, then the second choice, and so on. At this point it will not matter in which order the applications were submitted. For example, if we have 10 available panel assessment slots and 11 eligible applications that month, 3 of which are from a single organisation and the remaining 7 each from a different organisation, organisation x will be asked to prioritise its 3 applications, with only the top two being assessed at this month’s panel. The third application will be taken to the following month’s panel where available.

16. Will the fund be the same format after March 2022?

The availability of future funding beyond March 2022 is subject to Spending Review. This first year of the Knowledge Assets Grant Fund is a ‘test and learn’ phase. If future funding is available, we expect the format will be modified in line with lessons learned from this test and learn year and greater flexibility on funding timescales.

17. How will organisations receive grant funding?

Recipient organisations will be required to incur the cost of the activity and then invoice BEIS for the amount required to cover the activity with documented evidence of spend. We may allow invoices in advance of activity in special circumstances, in agreement between BEIS and the recipient. Specific details of how to create invoices and purchase orders will be provided along with Grant Offer Letters.