Notice

Competition guidance: infocus funding award, women in innovation

Updated 24 August 2016

This notice was withdrawn on 21 September 2017

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

1. Dates and deadlines

Competition opens	1 June 2016
Briefing event	20 June 2016 recording 18 July in Birmingham
Final date for registration	noon 24 August 2016
Submission of full application (incl. appendices) deadlines	noon 31 August 2016
Invite to interview	7 October 2016
Preparation day for final interview	12 October 2016
Interviews	19 to 21 October 2016
Winners announced	autumn 2016

The deadlines are absolute and final. Please note that our submission deadlines are always at 12.00 noon and we are unable to accept any applications after this time.

There was a briefing event for infocus: Women in Innovation on 20 June 2016 in London. See the recording.

There will be another briefing event on 18 July in Birmingham.

It will cover the application criteria and entry requirements and is an opportunity for you to get answers to any questions.

2. Before you apply

It is important to understand the eligibility criteria and scope for these awards. You should read the full competition brief before you apply. See further guidance to help you complete your application below.

2.1 The costs we fund

This section contains detailed information on which costs are eligible for funding. Please note that finance forms are not required for these awards. Find out more about Innovate UK project costs.

2.2 Submitting your application

This guidance explains how to submit your application and appendices.

The information below is specific to these awards.

3. Funding

We are running this process to find 12 women who will benefit from a tailor made package of support. In addition, 4 of these women will also receive £50,000 funding to further their plans.

Subject to quality, we expect to make a balanced distribution of the 12 awards across the following sector areas:

• emerging and enabling technologies
• health and life sciences
• infrastructure systems
• manufacturing and materials

Innovate UK offers funding under state aid. State aid operates within an approved framework regarding funding limits and set criteria. Innovate UK often operates under a state aid notification. This allows us to run competitions within this approved framework.

infocus: Women in Innovation 2016 is being run under the de minimis regulation. De minimis aid is used to describe small amounts of state aid that do not need European Commission approval.

The total de minimis aid which can be given to a single recipient is €200,000 over a 3 year fiscal period. This includes all aid received under the ‘de minimis’ regulation, not just aid received from Innovate UK. So when you apply for this award you must make sure that you will not exceed €200,000 over 3 financial years when you total all the de minimis state aid you have received from Innovate UK and any other public sector body.

De minimis aid does not affect the level of state aid that a recipient can receive under other schemes approved by the Commission.

De minimis aid can be given for most purposes, including operating aid, and is not project-related. De minimis aid cannot be given for export related activities (except attendance at trade fairs), agriculture and fisheries or aid which favours domestic over imported products.

You must keep records of public funds received under de minimis state aid regulations to ensure you do not exceed the €200,000 threshold over 3 years. You are responsible for giving us the correct information. If you go over the limits you will have to pay back any grant funding you have received, with interest.

Find out more about de minimis regulations

4. Requirements and eligibility

• anyone who self-identifies as a woman is eligible to apply
• applicants must work for a UK registered business, either as the company owner, an employee or a sole trader/entrepreneur. Any size of business is eligible
• pre-start ups may apply but your company must be registered before the grant can be awarded
• Innovate UK will provide 100% funding (see funding section).
• we expect to award up to £50k to each of the 4 winners
• the award will be made to the business, which must agree to allow the recipient to decide how the funding is used.
• the recipient must be in a position in which she can legally and contractually utilise the funding.
• you can only make one application for yourself (different women working within the same organisation may apply)
• projects/activities are expected to last for up to 12 months
• applicants must be eligible to receive funding under de minimis state aid regulations: see funding section. If you are working for a business that has exceeded the threshold for de minimis aid, please make this clear on your application and we will work with you to resolve this issue once final decisions have been made
• all applications will be assessed on individual merit in accordance with the normal Innovate UK process. However, we reserve the right to apply a ‘portfolio’ approach to ensure the distribution of funds across specific areas, subject to meeting the required quality criteria.

5. How to apply and what happens next

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

Application: You can log into the secure website using your username and password to access the relevant documents.

Submit your documents: You should submit:

• your application form with your unique application number for this competition
• appendices as PDF documents labelled with your application number

Please allow plenty of time to upload your completed application for submission. Our submission close dates can be very busy which means that our secure server can be slower than usual. If you miss the deadline your application will not be considered.

To upload your application documents, log on to the secure website with your secure username and password. See detailed instructions on our guidance for applicants.

Scope check: Only applications that meet the eligibility criteria and scope will be sent for assessment. You will be notified if your application is out of scope with full reasons as to why. Innovate UK reserves the right to declare applications as out of scope.

Assessment: Once the submission deadline is reached, your application is sent for assessment. External, independent experts assess the quality of your application. We then invite applicants for interview, selecting a portfolio of proposals that are:

• high quality
• representative of the 4 sectors

Preparation day for final interview: Finalists will be invited to meet with mentors for advice on preparing their pitches. Participation in this event is a pre-requisite for subsequent pitching to the interview panel.

Interview: Applicants who are invited to interview will be required to give a 10 minute presentation, followed by 20 minutes of Q&A with the interview panel.

Your presentation slide pack needs to be formally submitted to Innovate UK via your secure FTP site. This should be on the date stated in the notification e-mail. You should use Microsoft PowerPoint format. You should not submit videos or embedded web links. No changes can be made to the presentation after this date.

Please make sure you are available between 19 and 21 October 2016 as we are unable to reschedule slots once allocated. If you are an employee of a company, you should make sure that at least one representative from your organisation attends with you to confirm the support of the organisation. A maximum of 3 attendees may attend the interview. The mix of attendees is up to you, you should select the most appropriate people to attend.

Notify: The 4 winners will be announced at an event in autumn 2016

Feedback: applicants will receive feedback on their written application. Those who are invited to interview will also receive feedback from the interview panel.

You can access feedback by logging on to the secure website. No additional feedback will be provided and there will be no further discussion on the application. For more information on what happens after you submit your application please visit Innovate UK’s guide to submitting your application.

6. What happens if you are successful?

You will be sent a grant offer letter that you must sign and return before the project or activities can start. Any additional documentation that you are asked for will need to be completed and returned within stated timelines.

We will review your costs to check that they meet our funding rules. You may be asked to provide further information on the detail in your application form. Financial viability checks will be made on your organisation.

6.1 Monitoring officer

You will be assigned a monitoring officer who will work with you on the project or activity start-up. They will help to make sure your project complies with our terms and conditions. They are not responsible for project management.

6.2 Claims and auditing

Grants will be paid up-front. Costs are only eligible if they are incurred and paid between the project or activity start and end dates. Claims may be independently audited. Recipients will have to provide evidence that the grant has been spent on the agreed activities.

7. The application form

This section offers guidance on the application form and what information to include in each section.

To guide you through the main questions, the bullets below set out the main points you should try to focus on. They are not exhaustive and you may wish to provide other relevant information. In addition, it may be that some of the points are less relevant to your work than others and this should guide your responses. Use all available space and any relevant appendices within the set space limits.

The structure is as follows:

• public description of your project or activity
• application details
• section 1: You (2 questions)
• section 2: Your vision (2 questions)
• section 3: Your plan (2 questions)
• costs summary table

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

• you may only use the application form provided. It contains specific information including a unique reference number for your proposal
• the application form contains specific fields. Complete each field and present 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 the form fields is fixed. You must restrict the content of your responses in each of the fields to the space provided. The typeface, font size and colour cannot be changed. Illustrations and graphics cannot be included in the application form. Please check your completed application form in PRINT VIEW: 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, e.g, the total columns of a table. These cannot be overwritten

8. Application questions

Field	Guidance
Competition	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 is completed automatically
Applicant number	This 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
Application title	Enter the full title of the application
Sector	Please select from the drop down list
Timescales	Enter the estimated start date and the planned duration of your work plan. These are indicative at this stage and are not guaranteed
Organisation name	Enter the full registered name of your organisation and the company number (as provided by Companies House)
Organisation type	Please select from the drop down list
Applicant contact details	Enter the full name, postcode, e-mail address and telephone number of the woman who is applying
Are you eligible to receive funding under de minimis state aid regulations?	Please select yes or no

Summary of proposed activities (not scored).

Please provide a short summary of your application, including what is innovative about it.

Guidance

Please provide a short summary of your application and the proposal, including what is innovative about it. This summary is not scored, but provides an introduction to your proposal for the benefit of Innovate UK staff and assessors only. It will not be used for any public dissemination. It should cover, in brief:

• you
• your long-term vision
• your plan

Public description of the proposal (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/activities. Please provide a short description of your proposal in a way that the general public can understand. Do not include any commercially confidential information, for example intellectual property or patent details. Funding will not be provided to successful applicants without this.

8.1 Section 1: You (10 points per question = 20 points in total)

You should use this section to demonstrate that you are the right person for this award.

Question 1

What is the evidence that you have the capabilities and potential to be a leader in the area of business innovation that you plan to focus on and a role model for others?

Guidance

• explain why you have the potential to become a great leader in innovation. Why have you made the decision to focus on innovation in your field? Demonstrate that you have the ambition to achieve great things and the business acumen to deliver commercial success
• provide details of the skills and experience that you consider relevant to this award. Include evidence of aptitude and potential to lead, inspire and influence, communicate, and a willingness to work hard to achieve your potential
• describe how you would feel about being a role model to encourage and inspire more women into business innovation
• describe previous innovation activities including the development of novel technologies, innovative products or services and their commercialisation. Describe your role in these activities
• if you were encouraged to apply for this award by a colleague, you may want to include a few sentences from them on why they put you forward

In a separate appendix named “Appendix: Question 1” you can submit in pdf format up to 1 page of A4 for additional information to support this question. This may include recommendations from colleagues, publicity or outside references to your work.

Question 2

Demonstrate your understanding and experience of how to make innovation happen

Guidance

• provide evidence that you understand the different processes and key stages involved in making innovation happen. Demonstrate that you have relevant experience in at least some of these. This could include accessing funding, protecting intellectual property rights, getting buy-in from stakeholders, leading teams, identifying resources for innovation projects, or understanding market requirements and dynamics
• provide details of your involvement in relevant activities and how successful these have been

8.2 Section 2: Your vision (10 points per question = 20 points in total)

This section concerns your long-term vision for becoming a leader in business innovation and how you will achieve this. The area of business innovation that you are focusing on should represent a major opportunity for the UK and it is likely that it will take a number of years to exploit your ideas fully.

Question 3

What is your long-term vision and the novel idea or business innovation that you would like to develop, and why is this needed?

Guidance

• explain how your vision addresses a real business challenge and will enable a major advance in business innovation
• specify the market you will be targeting and any other potential markets
• explain why this is an important area of innovation and where known, what the current state-of-the-art is (including those near-market/in development). Include its limitations and whether and why you think that it could be game changing. Provide evidence that you have freedom to operate in the innovation area

In a separate appendix named ‘Appendix: Question 3’ you may submit in pdf format up to 1 page of A4 for additional information to support this question. You can include graphics describing the nature of the challenge, market dynamics, exploitation plans and/or details of evidence for innovation

Question 4

What are the benefits and wider impacts of your innovative idea?

Guidance

• explain how you as an individual will benefit from this award
• identify, and where possible quantify, any economic benefits from the innovative idea to you, your business, any partners that you will be working with and those outside the project (e.g. customers, others in the supply chain, broader industry and the UK economy).
• tell us how you are going to profit from the innovation (i.e, increased revenue or cost reduction) and how it will impact your business’ growth
• identify, and where possible quantify, any expected social impacts either positive or negative on, for example, quality of life, social inclusion/exclusion, jobs (safeguarded, created, changed, displaced), education, public empowerment, health and safety, regulation, diversity, and any expected impact on government priorities
• identify, and where possible quantify, any expected environmental impacts, either positive or negative
• indicate the timescale over which you would expect these benefits to be realised

8.3 Section 3: Your plan (10 points per question = 20 points in total)

This section seeks to understand how you plan to achieve your vision described in Section 2.

Question 5

How do you plan to achieve the long-term vision described in section 2? How will you use the funding and package of support on offer to achieve a key step on your overall journey?

Guidance

• map out your strategy for achieving your long-term vision. Your overall plan should be broken into stages with an outline of what you hope to achieve at each stage. Vital stages in progressing your idea may include growing your business, exploring a new area of innovation or undertaking activities to develop your skills/capabilities as an innovator
• explain how you would use the funding and support package associated with this award to enable you make an important step on your overall journey. The award money should enable you to do something you could not have done otherwise and help you to accelerate your innovative idea
• describe the barriers/challenges the award will help you to overcome
• how could you perform the proposed activities differently with the award? Could your idea could go ahead in any form without public funding? If so describe the difference public funding and the package of support would make (e.g. how will it accelerate progress towards achieving this stage in the plan)
• tell us why you are unable to fund the proposed activity from your own resources or other forms of private sector funding (i.e. what will happen if your application is unsuccessful)

Question 6

Describe your project or planned activities over the period of the award (up to one year). Include the activities you will undertake, what you will deliver, how this will be measured, and how you will effectively manage the schedule of activities.

Guidance

• describe the specific activities you would undertake with the funding and support package provided with the award and why these are important
• against each activity you should explain what outputs you expect to see and how these will take you closer to addressing the need, challenge or opportunity you have identified in your vision
• describe the cost of each activity you plan to undertake and explain how this represents value for money
• describe what success looks like and how this will be measured
• provide details of who you will need to work with to successfully execute your project or carry out the planned activity. Include any important internal or external parties, including sub-contractors
• describe any resources, equipment and facilities required for the project/activity and how you will access them
• indicate how you will manage the project to keep it on track and maximise the likelihood of success. For example any main tools and mechanisms that will be used to ensure successful delivery.
• identify the main risks and uncertainties of your project or planned activity, for example any technical, commercial, managerial or environmental risks, and explain how these will be mitigated

In a separate appendix named ‘Appendix: Question 6’ you may submit in pdf format up to 2 pages of A4 of further information to support this question. You may include, for example, a Gantt chart, risk analysis table and/or project management structure.

9. Finance summary and proposal appendices

Please complete the finance summary table showing the costs in each category. You should provide a brief description for each category of what the money will be spent on.

Please refer to our Project Costs Guidance for full details on eligible and ineligible costs.

9.1 Completing the finance summary section

Labour costs (£)

You may claim the labour costs of all individuals working directly on your proposal.

Administrative support costs (£)

You may incur indirect support staff costs linked with the administrative work in your proposal. To be eligible, these costs should be directly attributable to the proposal you are undertaking.

Materials consumed (£)

You can claim the costs of all materials you need to buy from third parties and which you will use in your proposal. Any residual/resale value at the end of the project/activity should be deducted from the total amount. Any materials bought from associated companies or partner organisations in your proposal should be calculated at cost.

Capital usage (£)

You may claim the usage costs of capital assets, providing they meet the following criteria:

• have a useful life of at least one year
• are stand alone, clearly definable and moveable
• capital items must conform to your organisation’s capitalisation policy

Sub-contracts (£)

You may claim costs relating to work carried out by third party organisations that are not part of your project team.

The work:

• must be essential to the success of your project
• must involve expertise that does not exist within the project team
• must involve skills that it is not practical to develop in-house

Travel and subsistence (£)

You may claim reasonable travel and subsistence costs which are necessary only for the progression of your project. Travel costs must be costed at ‘economy travel’ only.

Other costs (£)

This category is used for any direct costs which are not covered in the other categories.

Application appendices

You may include appendices of additional supporting information for particular questions on the application form. Please do not use the appendices to provide answers to the application form questions. Each appendix must:

• conform to the maximum length specifications stated for each question
• be submitted in Portable Document Format (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.

10. How to find out more

If you require further information or have a query regarding these awards, please contact Customer Support Services on:

E-mail: support@innovateuk.gov.uk

Tel: 0300 321 4357