Notice

Competition guidance: Newton UK-China agri-tech challenge 2017

Updated 25 July 2017

This notice was withdrawn on 21 September 2017

This competition is no longer open. Search current funding opportunities.

1. Dates and deadlines

Competition opens	5 June 2017
Competition briefing event	16 June 2017
Final date for UK registration	13 September 2017
Submission of the full application including finances forms, appendices and Je-S forms	20 September 2017
Decision to applicants	24 November 2017
Project start date	early 2018

Please read the full competition scope before you make your application.

The competition will open and close on different dates in the UK and China. UK applicants should inform their Chinese partners to keep updated with MOST’s official website for further information on when the competition will open and close in China.

2. Funding

There is up to £8 million of funding available from Innovate UK and the Biotechnology and Biological Sciences Research Council (BBSRC) for UK applicants. This is for research and development projects that tackle the technical challenges described in the brief for this competition.

We expect projects to last up to 36 months.

2.1 Financial support: UK

This funding comes from the Newton Fund. Applicants must be able to demonstrate that there is a clear economic and societal benefit to China from their proposed project. This is in line with the Newton Fund forming part of the UK Government’s Official Development Assistance (ODA) budget.

Expected costs, grant and eligible costs

We expect total UK project costs of between £1 million to £2 million per project, giving rise to a UK grant of no more than £1 million. Applications outside this range will only be considered with prior Innovate UK approval. Applications who do not have this approval will not be put forward for assessment.

Capital usage/equipment: expenditure on equipment is eligible under this competition. All materials must be directly related and essential to the goals of the project. Equipment funded by and used on the project, which has a value greater than £1 at the project end, must be donated to China in compliance with ODA rules.

Innovate UK will support the project costs for successful UK industrial partners. Please read full details of what project costs are eligible for funding from Innovate UK.

The Research Councils will support the project costs for successful UK academic partners. Please check Section 5 of the BBSRC grants guide for eligible HEI/Research Council institute project costs.

Proportion of total eligible costs and grant per type of applicant

• the business proportion of total eligible project costs must be 50% or higher
• research organisations, public sector organisations and charities (undertaking non-economic activity) can together claim up to 50% of total eligible project costs. If your consortium contains more than one research organisation, this maximum will be shared between them

2.2 Financial support: China

Maximum Grant: maximum grant per project for China is capped at 5 million RMB (in yuan). Please see fixed exchange rate.

For further information please visit MoST’s official website for this competition when it is launched.

3. Requirements and eligibility

If your research and development project is collaborative and focuses on industrial research, you can apply into this competition provided that your whole consortium meets all eligibility criteria.

Projects must focus on industrial research. This means planned research or critical investigation to gain new knowledge and skills. This should be for the purpose of product development, processes or services that lead to an improvement in existing/ new products, processes or services. Work packages that include elements of experimental development (as per Innovate UK funding rules) will be considered within projects that predominantly target industrial research.

Project eligibility

• projects must be collaborative, with partners from both China and the UK
• project duration should be up to 36 months
• this competition is not about funding basic research, but rather about translating existing research into innovative market-based solutions
• projects must be innovative and market-driven, leading to the proposed development of a new product, service or process, and ultimately to commercialisation
• projects must demonstrate clear commercial goals and associated commercialisation strategies
• projects must have identical start and end dates for both UK and Chinese applicants (the funders reserve the right to withdraw the grant if these dates are not kept to)

Each application must include as a minimum:

• one UK business
• one UK higher education institute or research council institute eligible for BBSRC funding
• one Chinese business
• one Chinese research organisation

There is no limit to the total number of partners you may have on the Chinese side of your consortium.

Each project must include a Project Lead from both the UK and China, as follows:

1. A UK Project Lead (UKPL), who is a UK registered business or research organisation. They must lead the UK side of the project and communicate with the Chinese Project Lead. We expect the UKPL organisation will build a consortium approach between UK partners and Chinese partners.

2. A Chinese registered organisation Project Lead (CPL), leading the Chinese part of the project and communicating with the UK Project Lead. The CPL can be a business, research organisation (RO) or academic organisation (AO). The collaboration must be led by organisations in China whose primary focus is on the translation and commercialisation of research and/or knowledge. This competition is not about funding basic research.

Official development assistance (ODA)

All submitted applications will be checked for ODA compliance by the Innovate UK Newton Fund team.

If projects are deemed by Innovate UK and BBSRC to be non-compliant with ODA, Innovate UK and BBSRC reserve the right not to submit the application for assessment.

Ethical information

If your proposal involves the use of humans or animals you must complete and submit an Ethical Information form with your application form. Guidelines on how to complete this form are within the template provided in the public area of the FTP site.

If projects are deemed by BBSRC to be non-compliant with animal testing guidelines, Innovate UK and BBSRC reserve the right not to submit the application for assessment.

3.1 Applicants from the UK

You may be eligible to receive different rates of funding. This depends on the type and size of your organisation and the activity that you are doing in the project. This should be in line with the Innovate UK funding rules.

Applications can be business or research organisation-led. Only UK-registered business and research organisations, public sector organisations and charities are eligible to apply.

3.2 Applicants from China

Eligible applicants from China must be:

• scientific research institutes, institutions of higher learning and enterprises established with corporate capacity within the mainland of People’s Republic of China
• must have appropriate channels and competence to launch international cooperation and are equipped with eligible research conditions and R&D strength
• Chinese businesses included in the consortium should provide their match funding at one-to-one scale, in total equalling to the government (MoST’s) fund
• in line with the general rules for the applicants who apply for inter-governmental science and technology cooperation projects

Specific eligible organisation types:

• micro, small, medium and large companies that operate and are headquartered in China
• research centres
• academic organisations

Ineligible organisations:

Companies headquartered and owned outside China and their subsidiaries in China, or vice versa, are not eligible to receive funding from MoST under this programme. Applications or organisations from Hong Kong, Macau or Taiwan are not eligible.

Research centres and academic organisations headquartered and owned outside China and their subsidiaries in China, or vice versa, are not eligible to receive funding from MoST under this programme. Applications or organisations from Hong Kong, Macau or Taiwan are not eligible.

3.3 UK-China partnerships

To be eligible for this competition, projects must focus on industrial research. Read a full definition of this research category in our funding rules.

Proposals must demonstrate the joint China-UK project team’s expertise and capacity to manage the proposed project in their respective countries.

Building on the principles of a true bilateral partnership, all projects should demonstrate equivalence in effort from the Chinese and UK partners.

Successful project participants need to demonstrate that all partners contributing to the R&D project, have agreed on intellectual property (IP) rights and the commercialisation plan as part of the final grant agreement process.

Innovate UK, BBSRC and MoST will expect successful project participants to put in place a final collaboration agreement. This should be signed by all project partners, as part of the conditions of taking up the grant offer.

4. Finding partners

4.1 Meeting mojo platform

Innovate UK, in conjunction with the Knowledge Transfer Network (KTN), has launched an online Meeting Mojo platform to enable applicants to find partners. All interested applicants should create a profile on Meeting Mojo and search for partners in the database specific to this UK-China competition. When you find a potential partner, you can message them to determine whether you are a good match to apply as part of a project team.

You should register for Meeting Mojo link, giving your full details. It will take up to 24 hours to be approved by the site admin before you can then search for partners. The Meeting Mojo link is also available on the Innovate UK competition webpage under the ‘Finding Partners’ section.

5. Competition process

5.1 Assessment

For this competition, the funding partners will use a portfolio approach. This is to make sure that the strategic criteria described in the competition brief is met for all projects considered to be above the quality threshold. This will be as a result of independent expert assessment.

The assessment process includes the following:

• submitted applications will be reviewed to make sure that the consortium is eligible, the application is in scope for the competition and the application is ODA-compliant. Only applications that meet these criteria will be sent for assessment
• assessors in both countries will review the application form and appendices along with associated supporting documentation (where appropriate)
• applications that are assessed will be ranked in descending order. Applications are scored over a quality threshold which is reviewed against the competition strategy, to build a portfolio of projects that:
  • demonstrate sufficient innovation, potential return on investment and degree of technical risk
  • demonstrate value for money, include the potential impact of the project relative to its cost, and the cost of other projects under consideration
  • demonstrate true collaboration amongst UK and Chinese project partners

5.2 Assessment process in the UK

Each application is assessed by up to 5 independent expert assessors against the same set of gateway and criteria questions. Each assessor completes and submits a score-sheet with comments for each application they assess. A report is then compiled to identify ranked order of all applications. All applications will be evaluated according to the standard assessment process, full details of which are available in the guidance for applicants.

5.3 Assessment process in China

All applications will be evaluated through MoST’s standard evaluation procedure.

5.4 Joint review and decision-making process

Following the independent evaluations in China and the UK, a joint review committee will be held. The committee will consist of representatives from the Chinese and UK funding agencies. They will identify the final list of successful applicants.

All funding organisations reserve the right to apply a portfolio approach across projects in different challenge areas, subject to applications reaching the required quality threshold. The final decisions on joint approvals in the call will be made at that time.

The decision to offer financial support and the conditions under which the support will be given is a prerogative of each country’s funding agencies. These agencies will independently analyse requests for funding in accordance with the operating policies of each institution.

Innovate UK will communicate the final decision in writing (by email or letter) to all the UKPL applicants respectively.

6. How to apply

MoST and Innovate UK use their own application forms in keeping with their own processes.

6.1 Applicants from the UK

Before you apply into this competition, it is important to understand the whole application process. The information contained in this guidance is specific to this competition. In addition, please read Innovate UK’s general guidance for applicants to help you submit a good application. It gives generalised information on:

• funding rules
• project costs
• state aid
• how to submit your application
• categories of research and development
• participation in a project

Register: You will receive an email acknowledgement of your registration followed by a second email up to 48 hours later. The second email will contain a username and password for our secure upload facility along with a unique application number and form.

If you wish to apply for funding for more than one project, register once and then request additional application forms by emailing Innovate UK’s customer support service support@innovateuk.gov.uk. You will then be able to make separate submissions by completing a unique application form for each separate project, ensuring the appropriate application form is uploaded to the site under the correct application number.

Please note: If repeat or duplicate applications for the same project are submitted, the repeat or duplicate applications will be ineligible and not assessed.

Once you have received your unique username and password, you can sign into the secure website to access the finance forms for this competition. Only UK finance forms named ’UK Project Finance Form.xls’ will be accepted into this competition. Previous versions of the project finance form will be ineligible.

All appendices must conform to the guidance for this specific competition. Appendices which do not follow this guidance will result in ineligible applications that will not be sent for assessment.

Submit your documents: You or your UK Project Lead should submit:

• your application form with your unique application number for this competition
• appendices A to D as pdf documents, labelled with your application number
• UK project finance forms for every non-academic UK partner in your project
• Je-S submission pdf output document for every UK academic partner in your project, if any
• if your proposal involves the use of humans or animals you must complete and submit an additional Ethical Information form with your application. Guidelines on how to complete this form within the template provided in the public area of the FTP site

Scope check: Only applications that meet the eligibility criteria, scope of the competition and ODA criteria will be sent for assessment. You will be notified if your application is not going for assessment with a full explanation as to why. All funding partners reserve the right to declare applications as out of scope and/or not ODA compliant.

Assessment: Once the competition submission deadline is reached, your application will be sent for assessment in the UK and China.

Notification: The UKPL will be notified of the outcome of your application on the date stated in the timeline.

Feedback: Innovate UK will give feedback to successful and unsuccessful UK applicants approximately 4 weeks after you have been notified of the decision. The UK Project Lead can access the feedback by signing into the secure website where you uploaded your application documents. It is the responsibility of the lead to communicate the feedback to the rest of the consortium. No additional feedback can be provided by Innovate UK and there will be no further discussion on the application.

6.2 Applicants from China

Chinese applicants must apply through the MoST application process.

On this joint UK-China competition MoST will not be applying a provincial quota on eligibility for assessment.

Checks on eligibility for assessment will be undertaken by MoST at the provincial level, and proposals will be disqualified if:

• proposals do not fit the challenge areas (scope) of the competition as described in this document
• Chinese enterprise included in the consortium cannot provide the match funding scale equalling to the government fund, as described in this document

For further information please visit MoST’s official website for this competition when it is launched.

6.3 Ineligible/rejected applications

These include:

• applications that do not meet the stated competition eligibility criteria as set out in this document, including scope and ODA compliance
• applications that are not in the prescribed template. Handwritten applications will not be accepted
• applications submitted via email will not be accepted by Innovate UK, they must be submitted as per Innovate UK’s standard process only
• applications that are submitted after the deadline for submissions, as stated in this document
• applications submitted to the incorrect organisation or using the incorrect application form for the competition
• applications in which only one side (i.e. one country) has submitted an application

The UK and Chinese Project Leads for each application should ensure that they liaise and coordinate to provide the application form and all additional documentation required by both countries. If an application does not include all documentation it will be deemed ineligible and will not be set for assessment.

6.4 Assessment process

MoST (for China) and Innovate UK (for UK) will conduct parallel but independent evaluations of all applications, according to their own standard assessment processes. This is to ensure the effective delivery of the competition and reinforce the principles of bilateral partnership. These will be based on the project criteria and requirements specified in the competition guidance, followed by a joint review.

Following the independent evaluations in China and UK, a joint review meeting will be held with representatives from the China and UK funding agencies. Prior to the joint review meeting taking place, Innovate UK, BBSRC and MoST will share their ranked list of assessed projects.

At the joint meetings, final decisions on joint approvals will be made. Together, all funding partners will make a joint final decision on projects to be shortlisted, based on the feedback and recommendations received from MoST (China) and Innovate UK (UK) assessors. During joint review Innovate UK, BBSRC and MoST may agree to identify successful projects based on a composite score. If the majority of assessors in either China or the UK do not recommend a project for funding, it will not be accepted as successful.

MoST, BBSRC and Innovate UK reserve the right to apply a portfolio approach across projects in the different scoped challenge areas, subject to applications reaching the required quality threshold.

Innovate UK will communicate the final decision in writing (via email/letter) to the UKPL applicants.

7. The application form

This section explains the structure of the Innovate UK application form and offers guidance on what to answer in each question.

The structure is as follows:

• application details
• summary of proposed project
• public description of the project
• gateway question: scope
• section 1: The business proposition (4 questions)
• section 2: Project details (4 questions)
• section 3: Funding and added value (2 questions)
• other funding from public sector bodies
• finance summary table

Please make sure that you upload the final version of your application by the deadline. It is your responsibility to ensure that you do not upload a blank or incomplete application form. Please note:

• you can only use the application form provided. It contains specific information including a unique reference number for your project
• the application form contains specific fields. It is important that you complete each field and submit a fully completed form. Incomplete forms will be rejected
• the application form must not be altered, converted or saved as a different version of Microsoft Word
• the space provided in each field of the form is fixed. You must restrict your responses in each of the fields to the space provided. The typeface, font size and colour are predetermined and cannot be changed. Illustrations and graphics cannot be included in the application form. Please check your completed application form in print layout: any text that can’t be seen in this view or when the form is printed will not be assessed
• the light grey shaded fields are completed automatically from other information entered on the form, such as the total columns of a table. These cannot be overwritten

Field	Guidance
Competition name	This field will show the full name of the Innovate UK competition to which the form applies. You do not need to enter anything here.
Document ID	This field is completed automatically.
Applicant number	This field is completed automatically and is the reference that you should use on all correspondence (this is the 5 or 6 digit number after the dash).
Application details
Project title	Enter the full title of the project.
Theme	Please select from the drop down list.
Research category	Please select from the drop down list.
Project timescales	Enter the estimated start date and its planned duration. These are indicative at this stage and are not guaranteed.
UK Project Lead (UKPL) organisation name	Enter the full registered name of the (lead) organisation for the project. If you are not in a consortium application, these will be your organisation details. Please note that the lead organisation will be the main point of contact between Innovate UK and the project team.
UKPL organisation contact details	Enter the full name, postcode, email address and telephone number of the main point of contact between Innovate UK and the project team.
Chinese Project Lead (CPL) organisation name	Enter the full name, postcode, email address and telephone number of the main point of contact between MoST and the project team.
Have any of the project partners previously received Newton funding?	Please select Yes/No. If yes is selected, please confirm which project partner has previously received Newton funding or is in the process of receiving Newton funding. Tell us which Delivery Partner awarded funding and under which Newton Fund activity.

7.1 Summary of proposed project (not scored)

Guidance

Please provide a short summary of the content and objectives of the project including what is innovative about it.

This summary is not scored, but provides an introduction to your application for the benefit of Innovate UK staff and assessors only. It will not be used for any public dissemination. It should cover, in brief:

• need or challenge: the business need, technological challenge or market opportunity to be addressed
• approach and innovation: the approach to be taken and how this will improve on current state-of-the-art
• outcomes: the difference the project will make to the competitiveness and productivity of the partners involved

7.2 Public description of the project (not scored)

Guidance

To comply with government practice on openness and transparency of public-funded activities, Innovate UK has to publish information relating to funded projects. Please provide a short description of your proposal in a way that will be understandable to the general public. Do not include any commercially confidential information, for example intellectual property or patent details.

Please describe your project. Funding will not be provided to successful projects without this.

7.3 Gateway Question: Scope

Guidance

How does this application align with the specific competition scope?

• all applications must align with the specific competition scope criteria as described in the relevant competition brief
• to demonstrate alignment, you need to show that a clear majority of the project’s objectives and activities are aligned with the specific competition

8. Competition questions

All questions apply to all project partners and are scored out of 10 marks.

8.1 Section 1: The business proposition

Question 1: What is the business opportunity that this project addresses?

Describe how your proposal will exploit existing research in order to create new products, services or processes relevant to the 3 challenge areas (i.e. technical scope) of this call.

Outline the business opportunity and what the project team needs to do to successfully address it within the preferred timeframe and cost.

Describe the nature of the problems or issues facing you and/or your potential customers. How will the intended outputs of the project respond to these problems and issues?

In a separate appendix named ‘AppendixA-(application number)’ you can submit in pdf format up to 5 A4 pages to include graphics describing the nature of the problem, market dynamics and/or exploitation plans.

Question 2: What is the size of the market opportunity that this project might open up?

Describe the size of the market opportunities that this project might open up, including details of:

• current nature of the specific markets at which the project is targeted (is it characterised by price competition amongst commoditised suppliers? Is it dominated by a single leading firm?)
• the dynamics of the market including measuring its current size, actual and predicted growth rates
• the projected market share for the project outcome, with justification in the light of any potential competitors
• the potential to create value-added for the UK and/or China

Describe and clearly measure the return on investment that the project could achieve. Provide relevant source data references.

Where possible provide evidence for your statements about the target market for project outcomes. Outline your strategy for developing market share.

For highly innovative projects (see question 6) where the market may be unexplored, explain:

• what the route to market could or might be
• what its size might be
• how the project will explore the market potential

Question 3: How will the results of the project be exploited and disseminated?

List or describe the potential exploitable outputs of the project such as:

• products or services
• processes
• applications

Then describe how these outputs will be exploited including, where applicable:

• the route to market
• protection of intellectual property rights
• reconfiguration of the value system
• changes to business models and business processes
• other methods of exploitation and protection

Where helpful to the exchange of best practice, and not damaging to commercial interests, the results from this work should be made public on a voluntary basis. A plan for the distribution of generic outputs from the funded project should be included.

Please note: Research organisations who are involved in a project and funded for undertaking non-economic activity should provide evidence in their answer to this question of plans to distribute their project outputs over a reasonable timescale. The requirement for dissemination of research results is to secure wider benefit from the higher level of public support given to research organisations. For further information, please see the Innovate UK funding rules.

Question 4: Why is the project eligible for ODA funding? What beneficial outputs are the project expected to deliver to those inside and outside of the consortium, and over what timescale?

To be eligible for a Newton Fund grant, applicants must clearly explain and give evidence for why and how their project fits within eligibility for ODA.

A project should demonstrate high industrial relevance and commercial potential. It should also demonstrate that it will have a positive impact upon the economic development and social welfare of China, beyond primary commercial interests. Proposals that do not demonstrate how they aim to further sustainable development (and thereby contribute to a reduction in poverty), or improve the welfare of China’s population, will be considered ineligible.

Benefits to those outside the consortium and to consortium participants should be considered and you should make a clear distinction between these. All applications must demonstrate that wider socio-economic benefits will grow outside of the consortium in the Newton partner country. This should be in a short-to-medium timeframe. You must elaborate who will benefit and what those benefits are.

Read further information on Official Development Assistance and compliance.

8.2 Section 2: Project details

Question 5: What technical approach will be adopted and how will the project be managed?

Provide an overview of the technical approach including the main objectives of the work. Describe the main areas of work together with their resource and management requirements.

In evaluating this the assessors will consider these questions:

• is the technical approach and methodology appropriate to the needs of the project? Are the innovative steps achievable through the proposed approach?
• is the project plan sufficient in comparison to the complexity of the project? For example, is there enough detail to understand the tasks involved and the resources required?
• is the timing of key milestones realistic?
• is there demonstration of sufficient resource commitment and capability to undertake the project?
• are clear management reporting lines identified?

Describe rival technologies and alternative R&D strategies and describe why your proposed approach will offer a better outcome.

You must provide a milestone based project plan for the project. Please submit it using Appendix B, not in the space provided to answer this question. For detailed guidance on what to include in the plan, please see Section 3.3.

In a separate appendix named ’AppendixB-(application number)’ you must submit in pdf format up to 5 pages to include, for example, a Gantt chart, risk analysis table, project management structure and/or details of evidence for innovation.

Academic and business applications may submit an additional 2 A4 sides for additional assessment information particularly for academics, such as the Pathways to Impact and Research Excellence.

Question 6: What is innovative about this project?

Identify the extent to which the project is innovative both commercially and technically.

In evaluating this section assessors will consider these questions:

• does it push boundaries over and beyond current leading-edge world science and technology?
• is it looking to apply existing technologies in new areas?

Highlight and explain the timeliness and novelty of the research aspects of the project in an industrial and/or academic context.

Describe any evidence you have to back up your belief that the intended work is innovative. This could include the results of patent searches, competitor analyses and literature surveys. If applicable, you should also outline your own background intellectual property rights, as related to the project.

You may additionally consider:

• what is current best practice?
• what are the current limitations to innovation and how will the project overcome them? This is an opportunity to elaborate on the shortcomings that exist in the proposed area of innovation and how your project can overcome these shortcomings. Current limitations could include: high cost, sub-optimal performance, lack of attention to specific market opportunities, for example, poor suitability to high-or-low-end markets, size, compatibility, nonconformance to standards. Diagrams and tables could be included in Appendix B to help describe the innovation
• what is the patent situation, including background patents and the potential for new patents? Are there any obligations to other agencies which have supported any part of the innovation development?
• which standards relate to the developed product? Will the proposed product meet current and/or emerging standards?

Question 7: What are the risks (technical, commercial and environmental) to project success? What is the risk management strategy?

The funding partners recognise that projects of this type are inherently risky, but we look for assurance that the projects we fund have adequate arrangements for managing this risk. Focus on the arrangements for managing and mitigating risk as follows:

• identify the main risks and uncertainties of the project and provide a detailed risk analysis for the project content and approach. Include the technical, commercial, managerial and environmental risks as well as other uncertainties (for example, ethical issues) associated with the project. The main risks should then be rated as high/medium/low (H/M/L)
• state how the project would avoid these main risks. You should tackle all significant and relevant risks and their mitigation
• identify vital project management tools and mechanisms that will be used to help minimise operational risk and promote a successful project outcome. This should include arrangements for managing the project team and its partners

Question 8: Do the project team have the right skills, experience and access to facilities to deliver the identified benefits?

Describe the track record of the project team members (comprising both UK and Chinese partners) in undertaking and exploiting the results of research and development projects. This should highlight your capability to develop and exploit the technology.

In evaluating this, the assessors will consider whether:

• the project team has the right available mix of skills and experience to deliver the project successfully and each member has a clear role
• the project team’s formation objectives are clear and if it would have been formed without investment from this competition

Is there evidence of additional benefit from the collaboration? For example, increased knowledge transfer. If the consortium is greater than the sum of its parts – how will the organisations achieve more working together than if they were working individually?

In a separate appendix named ’AppendixC-(application number)’ you must provide details of the specific expertise and track record of each project partner and each subcontractor. You should use half an A4 page for each partner and contractor.

Academic collaborators may wish to refer to their research standing.

8.3 Section 3: Funding and added value

(10 points per question = 20 points in total)

Question 9: What is the financial commitment required for the project?

Detail the estimated project cost making clear the level of contribution from any project participants and the level of funding required from the funding partners. This information should be provided in the financial summary tables in the application form.

If a project partner is not proposing to claim grant, then it must still show its costs in the finance summary table and describe them in the answer to this question so that the assessors can evaluate the whole project. The detailed finance forms will not be required for UK partners not requesting grant.

Supporting information and explanation for project costs should be provided in this section of the form. It must be consistent with the category of research and development being undertaken within each work package. Please see the guidance for further details on funding rules.

Important: If the project spans more than one type of funding (for example because significant work packages are in both fundamental and industrial research), you must describe and justify the breakdown of costs between them within the answer to this question.

In evaluating this the assessors will consider the following questions:

• is the budget realistic for the scale and complexity of the project?
• does the financial support required from Innovate UK fit within the limits set by the specific competition?
• is a financial commitment from other sources demonstrated for the balance of the project costs?
• have any work package breakdowns been described and justified adequately?

Find out more about UK eligible project costs.

Please note: For collaborations involving UK research organisations, the costs of PhD research students are no longer eligible to be included in project costs. This is in line with current research council guidelines. Please refer to the guidance via the above link for further details.

Make sure that all vital finance project points that you wish the assessors to consider are included in the main body of your application form, or in the relevant appendix. These are the main documents used within the assessment process.

Question 10: How does financial support from Innovate UK and its funding collaborators add value?

The project should demonstrate the contribution of the participants from both countries on an equal base, and the project must be equally significant to both UK and Chinese participants.

The project should have an obvious advantage and added value resulting from the technological cooperation between the participants from the 2 countries (e.g. increased knowledge base, commercial leads, access to R&D infrastructure)

On the UK-China project level you will need to provide evidence that:

• successful delivery of your project will increase the total amount of money the project team spends on research and development in UK and China
• UK and Chinese funding would allow you to undertake the project differently (for example, quicker, on a larger scale) and why this would be beneficial to China and the UK

On a UK-side you will need to provide evidence for:

• why Innovate UK funding is required for the project to be able to proceed or
• how Innovate UK funding would allow you to undertake the project differently (for example, quicker, on a larger scale) and why this would be beneficial to China and the UK

9. Finance summary

This table lists the total eligible project costs by contributor. Note that only certain project costs are eligible for grant funding under UK State Aid rules. See our project costs guidance for information on eligible project costs and how to complete the finance forms.

Column 1 Organisation name	Please provide the full names of the (lead) organisations (both UK and China on separate rows) and any participants in the project consortium (organisation names as noted in Companies House/CIN) on separate rows below.
Column 2 Organisation registration number	UK partner: Companies should provide the Company Registration Number (as noted in Companies House). UK Research Organisations should enter their RC number/Charitable status/legal entity registration number. Chinese partner: Companies should provide the Corporate Identity Number (CIN) or the new Unified Social Credit Code if available.
Column 3 Enterprise category	UK partner: Select your enterprise category. SME definition is based on the EU definition. Medium sized: Headcount less than 250: Turnover less than 50 million euros or balance sheet total less than 43 million euros Small: Headcount less than 50: Turnover less than 10 million euros or balance sheet total less than 10 million euros Micro: Headcount less than 10: Turnover less than 2 million euros or balance sheet total less than 2 million euros Chinese partner: Please enter the appropriate category for your Chinese partners according to Chinese legal definitions.
Column 4 Postcode where the majority of work will be done	Provide the postcode of each organisation participating in the project.
Column 5 Contribution to the project by each organisation (£)/(Yuan)	Please list the total contribution to be made to the project by each organisation. All UK applicant figures in cols 5 to 9 must be in £ at the stated exchange rate. All Chinese figures in cols 5 to 9 must be in Chinese Yuan (Yuan) at the stated exchange rate.
Column 6 Funding sought from Innovate UK value in (£)	Please enter the funding sought from Innovate UK for each UK participant organisation in the consortium for this competition. See Column 5 above.
Column 7 Funding sought from MoST (China) value in (Yuan)	Please enter the funding sought from MoST for each Chinese participant organisation in the consortium for this competition. See Column 5 above.
Column 8 Other funding from public sector bodies (£)/(Yuan)	Please include any funding for the project from any other public sector bodies which has been applied for separately, and not as part of this competition. Funding from other public sector bodies might include other applications to research councils, other government departments, devolved administrations, other public sector organisations and some charities. The purpose of this column is to provide Innovate UK and MoST with information on the total public funding for the project. See Column 5 above.
Column 9 Total (£)/(Yuan)	The total cost of the project for each contributor. This is the sum of columns 5, 6 and 7 and will be entered automatically.
Bottom row Total (£)/(Yuan)	The total of each column will be entered automatically.

10. Finance form

10.1 Finace form for the UK

Each non-academic contributor in your project must provide a project finance form using the template ‘Project finance form’ which is available on the FTP site. This must be submitted with the application form by the lead applicant. Each finance form provides a detailed breakdown on each contributor’s total eligible project costs listed in your finance summary table.

10.2 Finance form for China

For further information please visit MoST’s official website for this competition when it is launched.

11. Project appendices

You can include appendices to support your responses to the application questions as described in the guidance for those questions. Any additional appendices submitted will not be sent for assessment.

Applications submitted with incorrect appendices will be ineligible and the applications will not be sent for assessment.

Questions 1, 5 and 8 have appendices attached. You should also submit 2 further mandatory appendices:

1. Appendix D to demonstrate how the project, as a whole, complies with the Official Development Assistance criteria. If your project is viewed as not compliant with the ODA criteria, it cannot be funded. You should use a maximum of 2 sides of A4.
2. If your proposal involves the use of humans or animals you must complete and submit an additional ‘Ethical Information’ form with your application. Guidelines on how to complete this form within the template provided in the public area of the FTP site.

In order that assessors can open and read the appendices, each appendix must:

• conform to the maximum length specifications stated for each question
• be submitted in pdf
• be legible at 100% zoom/magnification
• display prominently the ‘application number’ as in the filename of the application form.

Please do not submit appendices longer than the specified lengths. Assessors are instructed to only read appendices to the lengths specified in the guidance.

11.1 Project plan

Innovate UK application form/process

In addition to your response to question 6 on the application form, you must submit a mandatory project plan as part of appendix B. For UK partners, a more detailed project plan will be required by Innovate UK. This will be used to monitor project progress and should be submitted as part of appendix B.

The project plan should consist of:

1. A chronological schedule of project activities presented in graphical form (such as a Gantt chart on one page). You should clearly indicate the estimated time required for the completion of each main task in addition to milestones. Specific participant assignments for each task should be identified in the project plan even if this information was provided elsewhere. Task assignments for subcontractors and consultants should be separately identified and described with location of work.

2. A Work Breakdown Structure (WBS) detailing the planned time commitment for each task, covering the same project duration.

Table 1: Example work breakdown structure and estimated effort

Task	Title	Task description	Start date	End date	Effort days
1000	Phase 1
1100	Project management
1110	Project management and support	Plan and monitor project activities and progress. Implement and monitor subcontracts. Monthly and quarterly reports			70 participant A
1120	Meetings	Kick off meeting Quarterly review meetings			10 each
1200	High-level system requirements and design
1210	System requirements and design	Overall system requirement specifications Overall system conceptual architecture and design System components definition			60 participant A 20 participant B
1300	Data plan
1310	Data planning, acquisition and preparation	Data planning Data acquisition Data preparation and processing			20 participant A 20 participant C
1320	Model data integration	Ingregrate data into models Test models and analyse outputs			40 participant A 40 participant C
1400	Model identification and definition
1410	Application crop model implementation	Model identification development and testing			60 participant A 60 participant C
1420	Integrated intelligent model implementation	Integrated intelligent model implementation			80 participant A 10 participant B
1430	Product generation model implementation	Model identification, development and testing			40 participant A 10 participant B
1500	Harware and software identification and acquisition
1510	Sensors	Identify and purchase sensors Install, test and maintain sensors			10 participant A 40 participant C
1520	Software acquistion	Software development and testing			10 participant B
1600	Commercialisation requirements				20 participant A 20 participant D
					XX Participant A YY Participant B ZZ Participant C AA Participant D

12. Additional information

12.1 Exchange rate

For the purposes of this competition. The stated exchange rate UK £ to Chinese Yuan is: 1 GBP = 9 RMB

Note: this indicative exchange rate must be used in any calculations by applicants at all times during the competition process.

Contact information China: Ministry of Science and Technology (MoST)

For application inquiry (China Science and Technology Exchange Center): 54 Sanlihe Road, Beijing 100045, P. R. China WU Xiaoyu Tel: +86-10-68598010 Email: wuxy@cstec.org.cn

UK
Innovate UK Customer Support Services Innovate UK Polaris House North Star Avenue Swindon SN2 1FL Wiltshire

Competition helpline: 0300 321 4357 (Monday to Friday, 9am to 5:30pm Email: support@innovateuk.gov.uk UK Intellectual Property Office (UK IPO) UK applicants with queries about intellectual property in China can contact the UK’s Senior Intellectual Property Officer in China, details as below. This support is limited to UK applicants only.

Intellectual Property and doing Business in UK/China For queries from UK applicants only related to Intellectual Property and doing business in China, please contact the UK’s Intellectual Property Officer in China, as below. Please reference this competition when communicating to the UK IPO representative: Tom Duke | Senior Intellectual Property Officer British Embassy Beijing Tom.Duke2@fco.gov.uk

UK-China collaborative research IP toolkit