Mini Innovation Vouchers

This particular funding opportunity is no longer available.

Deadline for full proposals now extended and due for submission by 9am on Tuesday 3rd May 2022 (originally full proposals were due for submission by 12 noon on Monday 11th April 2022)

The national SPRINT (SPace Research and Innovation Network for Technology) business support programme has been awarded additional funding from the UK Space Agency to extend its reach to all UK Higher Education Institutions (HEIs) through a mini innovation voucher call. This will provide UK businesses with funded access to the expertise, facilities and capabilities of additional space-focused UK HEIs to initiate short collaborations looking at commercial applications of research, such as completing a market assessment and commercialisation plan for a proposed technology, or accelerating the route to market of existing intellectual property.

The budget available is £60k with projects (of appropriate quality) from the Celtic Arc prioritised for at least £30k of this funding. You can apply for up to £7,000 to help enable your collaborative project. Exceptional projects requesting a small amount more than this value will be considered provided sufficient justification is provided. SPRINT funds the university’s costs in delivering the collaborative project whilst the company funds its own costs. SPRINT intend to award up to a minimum of 8 projects.

Deadline for full proposals now extended and due for submission by 9am on Tuesday 3rd May 2022 (originally full proposals were due for submission by 12 noon on Monday 11th April 2022)

Eligibility

Any UK-registered SME with active R&D activities based in the UK is eligible to receive Mini Innovation Vouchers from SPRINT.

SPRINT has been designed to support growth in SMEs (Small to Medium Enterprises). We use the Companies House definition for determining company size and you must be a micro-entity, small company or medium-sized company to be eligible.

Any questions you may have on your business’s eligibility to receive funded support from SPRINT should be directed to [email protected].

Briefing Event

A briefing event will be held from 1-2pm on Tuesday 8 March to inform organisations about the SPRINT programme and funding opportunities that will shortly become available.

Click on the following link for further information and to Register

Application Documents

The following documents form the application pack:

• Guidance documentation
  • SPRINT_UKSA Innovation Vouchers_General Guidance_Final
  • SPRINT_3Way UKSA funded Collaboration template_final draft  *
  • SPRINT_3Way RE funded Collaboration template_final draft  *
• Application documentation
  • SPRINT_UKSA_Innovation Vouchers_Project_Application_Form_Final
  • SPRINT_UKSA_Application Finance Spreadsheet_Final

* Should an award be made, the applicants will be required to enter into a Project Collaboration Agreement with the University of Leicester (who will contractually administer this competition on behalf of SPRINT). This will be one of the two collaboration templates above, which are the same apart from the origin of the funds allocated. Devolved Nations HEIs will be awarded funds using the UKSA template.

Here are the main dates:

All queries can be emailed to [email protected]