Innovate UK CR&D Call Now Open

As the appetite for a greener economy grows from government, industry, and consumers alike, there is a greater need than ever for businesses to shift towards sustainability and circularity.  The government and its agencies recognise that industry needs funding, support and the right connections in order to change with the time, to plan for the longer term. Innovate UK, part of UK Research and Innovation, is therefore running the following funding call:

Circular Economy for SMEs – innovating with the NICER programme

Innovate UK will invest up to £1 million in circular economy innovation projects. UK registered businesses can apply for a share to research, test, and develop step-change circular economy approaches.

This funding forms part of the UKRI National Interdisciplinary Circular Economy Research programme (NICER), enabling SMEs to engage with and benefit from access to expertise at five research centres via collaborative research and development (CR&D) activities.

The aim of this competition is to support feasibility studies, industrial research and experimental development that address the challenges of transitioning to a circular economy.

Projects must demonstrate how you will create a step-change in the adoption of circular economy approaches such as repair, reuse, remanufacture, recycling and regeneration. The competition also provides an opportunity to work with the 5 National Interdisciplinary Circular Economy Research Centres.

This competition opened on October 11^th 2021 and the closing date is 8^th December 2021. KTN ran the briefing event on 18^th October for this call, which helped participants understand the process for applying and find the kind of partners that would make projects compelling.

As Coordinators of the NICER Programme the CE-Hub is happy to hear from prospective applicants and make introductions to the relevant Centre leads as appropriate. Additionally, the CE-Hub is interested in proposals that complement the work of the five CE Centres and can also be upscaled and shared beyond the five resource flows including CE resource flow modelling, connectivity to existing large UK data sets, measurement of CE, design, circular business models including citizen behaviour, policy interventions and cross-value chain collaboration.

For updates on events run by the 5 Circular Economy Research Centres about this call, follow us on Twitter, LinkedIn, and Instagram.