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Horizon’s 2020 SME Instrument: Looking for Europe’s next innovation leaders

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As part of the Horizon 2020 programme, the European Commission is hand-picking potentially disruptive businesses to invest and support as part of the SME Instrument. Your business could receive up to €2.5 million in funding, and world-class business coaching.

Who should apply?

The EU are looking for high growth, highly innovative SMEs [Check the EU definition of SME] with global ambitions that want to disrupt the established value networks and existing markets. It’s a good sign if your company is based in an innovation hub, has received grants or venture capital funding, received innovation-related tax benefits, or won an innovation prize in the last 2 years.

Phases

The funding will take place in three phases, with the aim of transforming disruptive ideas into concrete, innovative solutions with a European and global impact. SMEs are recommended to apply for Phase 1, but may also apply for subsequent phases depending on the progress of their proposals:

Phase 1. Concept & Feasibility Assessment; Idea to concept (6 months)

The European Union will provide €50 000 in funding, and carry out a feasibility study to verify the viability of the proposed disruptive innovation or concept.

The SME will draft an initial business proposal (around 10 pages).

Phase 2. Demonstration, Market Replication, R&D; Concept to Market-Maturity (1-2 years)

Assisted by the EU, the SME will further develop its proposal through innovation activities, such as demonstration, testing, piloting, scaling up, and miniaturisation. It will also draft a more developed business plan (around 30 pages).

Proposals will be based on a business plan developed on phase 1 or otherwise. The EU aims to contribute between €0.5 million and €2.5 million.

Phase 3. Commercialisation, Prepare for Market Launch

SMEs will receive extensive support, training, mentorship and facilitating access to risk finance as the project is further polished into a marketable product.

Additional support and networking opportunities will be provided by Enterprise Europe Network (EEN).

The EU will not provide additional direct funding in this phase.

Themes

In 2014 and 2015 the SME Instrument will sponsor SMEs operating within 13 themes:

  • High risk ICT innovation
  • Nanotech, or other advanced tech for manufacturing and materials
  • Space research and development
  • Clinical research for the validation of diagnostics devices and biomarkers
  • Sustainable food production and processing
  • Blue growth
  • Low carbon energy systems
  • Greener and more integrated transport
  • Eco-innovation and sustainable raw material supply
  • Urban critical infrastructure
  • Biotechnology-based industrial processes
  • Mobile e-government applications (2015 only)
  • SME business model innovation (2015 only)

Here is a SME Instrument Case Study

FABPulous is a SME based in The Netherlands which was spun out of Maastricht University at the end of 2008, which will receive €1.6 m. from the European Union under Horizon 2020 SME Instrument programme to develop the Rapidex project.

Thanks to its researching FABPulous has developed a rapid test for the cardiac biomarker so called heart-type fatty acid binding protein (H-FABP), to aid in the first-line diagnosis of acute myocardial infarction (AMI) commonly known as a heart attack.

“It is able to distinguish patients who would have a heart attack to those wouldn’t have it. So a test like this could be identified those disinclined patients and send them home in three hours which is a big achievement”, states Mr. Conor O’Brien, Managing Director of FABPulous.

This offers great advantages in the point-of-care and home testing setting, over current technology.  Also it will help to relieve Emergency department overcrowding in Europe since “at the moment about 1 in 5 patients who seek medical attention with chest pain have a confirmed acute myocardial infarction but they have treat all of them”, points O’Brien.

For this company H2020 SME Instrument programme helps in generating critical evidences in this medical concern and boosts clinical research for the validation of biomarkers and/or diagnostic medical devices.

Deadlines:

Phase 1 &  Phase 2 17/06/2015; 17/02/09/2015; 25/11/2015

Find out more :

http://ec.europa.eu/easme/en/horizons-2020-sme-instrument

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Using Crowdfunder for your crowdfunding campaign

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Crowdfunding is a huge growth area, Nesta said that in 2014 crowdfunding grew by a massive 388%. Crowdfunder is the UK’s largest based crowdfunding platform. Crowdfunder helps community groups, charities and social enterprises raise funds from the community around them, helping people turn their ideas into reality. So far they have helped thousands of projects raise over £4 million.

Crowdfunding is a way of funding a specific project by raising donations from people through an online campaign.

You can crowdfund if you are starting your fundraising from scratch, want to set up a new project or have already received funding from other sources. In fact many organisations chose to use Crowdfunder as match funding to unlock much larger pots of money.

How does it work?

  • To start your project you’ll need to decide on the amount you need to raise and explain how you are going to use the money through an online video.
  • Once your project page is live you invite your community to back the project with pledges of cash. You can also ask people to donate time and skills towards projects.
  • In return for backing your project that person receives a ‘reward’ from you. Rewards are normally a product, service or experience that is produced by the project. When a person backs a project they get a ‘reward’ from the project. Rewards are normally a product, service or experience that is produced by the project. For example Leeds bread co-operative gave a loaf of bread every week for a year in return for a £100 pledge, this allowed them to setup their bakery and raise £8000 from 114 local people.
  • Supported by Crowdfunder, you promote your project using a mixture of social media, email, word of mouth and events.
  • You need to hit your fundraising target for the money to be released to their project.
  • Once you have raised the money, you then distribute their rewards to your backers – and make their great idea happen.

Many projects say they learn entrepreneurial and marketing skills in the process of crowdfunding and promote their project to new people who will help in many ways over the coming years. Start your project here:

http://www.crowdfunder.co.uk/workingwith/funding-central/?af=fundingcircle

 

AHRC Highlight notice for cross-disciplinary research networks

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The Arts and Humanities Research Council invites applications for its highlight notice for cross-disciplinary research networks exploring emerging areas of cross-council enquiry. This supports cross-disciplinary proposals addressing boundary-crossing engagement in relation to emerging issues in science and technology. The following topics are particularly encouraged:

  • risk
  • conflict, transnational organised crime and cybersecurity
  • cities, urbanisation, urban living and smart cities
  • valuing nature
  • antimicrobial resistance
  • wellbeing
  • emerging areas of science and technology, such as the internet of things, robotics and autonomous systems, synthetic biology, regenerative medicine and wearable technologies

Applications should be lead by arts or humanities researchers and include a plan for significant participation by science researchers, a commitment to cross-disciplinary working and an interest in emerging areas where there has been little collaboration between the arts and sciences.

Closing date: 31 Jul 15

For further information go to: http://www.ahrc.ac.uk/Funding-Opportunities/Pages/Cross-Disciplinary-Research-Networks-Exploring-Emerging-Areas-of-Cross-Council-Enquiry-Highlight-Notice.aspx

Enhancing User Experience Using Personal Data

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Innovate UK is to invest up to £2 million to support feasibility studies looking at innovative ways to improve the user experience in the digital economy.

We are looking for projects that use the increasing amount of personal data generated by individuals to gain insights into user needs and behaviours.

The competition is open to small and medium-sized enterprises singly or in collaboration. Proposals must be led by a business.

Small businesses could receive up to 70% of their eligible project costs, medium-sized businesses 60%.

We expect projects to last 6 to 12 months and to range in size from total costs of £90,000 to £120,000.

This competition opens on 16 March 2015. The deadline for registration is noon on 29 April 2015, and the deadline for applications is noon on 6 May 2015.

Proposals should explore new ways of using personal data to enhance users’ experience of a product or service.

We are interested in projects that:

  • harness personal data to develop or improve products
  • employ innovative methodology to explore opportunities arising from analysing personal data

Successful applications will demonstrate understanding of the commercial benefits of user-centred-design and use personal data to design innovative products that provide a great user experience.

Projects should focus on one or more of the three components of user experience outlined below.

Utility: Gain detailed insight into user needs and requirements in a specific sector area and design a new product or service that fulfils this need.

Usability: Gain detailed insights into user behaviour when using a specific product or service. Use them to design a new product or design improvements to an existing product, which can anticipate this behaviour, making it more inclusive and easier to use.

Desirability: Understand what data to capture, how to analyse it, and how to use these insights. Ensuring that a specific product or service can adjust to changes in user needs, behaviour and desires.

Successful projects can be focused on large user groups or on personalised solutions for individuals.

Please click here for further details https://interact.innovateuk.org/competition-display-page/-/asset_publisher/RqEt2AKmEBhi/content/enhancing-user-experience-using-personal-data

If you are interested and require support please contact Naomi Arblaster in ECD: N.Arblaster@staffs.ac.uk, Tel: 01785 353519

New Call: Protecting Data in Industry

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Innovate UK is to invest up to £4 million in collaborative research and development (R&D) projects that tackle the growing risks of disruption to internet-enabled businesses and their digital supply chains.

With the Internet of Things providing new sources of data and end-users’ ever-increasing digital footprint, it is difficult to adequately protect the interests of a business, industry or sector. There is also a lack of understanding of the effects disruption may have.

We are seeking proposals that address the challenge of protecting a business, industry or sector from digital disruption that could compromise data across the digital supply chain.

We want to identify and fund industrial research that will strengthen the protection and resilience of such data, so businesses and the public can place higher levels of confidence in the delivery of digitally enabled business products and services.

In Scope

This competition seeks better ways for UK organisations to mitigate these risks when operating in a digitally enabled environment, either within the UK or globally.

These may include (but are not limited to) innovative software, hardware, infrastructure or processes that target legacy, existing or new internet-based systems that are part of an organisation’s digital supply chain.

While we seek to fund industrial research and development projects to address this challenge, our primary goal is to achieve economic growth through new business success. As a result, we want to see a business model, sector or industry as the main focus of the proposed innovation.

We will therefore fund projects conducting industrial research whose outputs increase data protection, awareness and resilience:

  • In an industry: suppliers, manufacturers, distributors and service partners form a supply chain that relies on accurate, reliable and trustworthy data within (and between) each organisation in order to directly, or indirectly, produce goods (physical or digital). Data of this type includes schematics, logistical information, creative artwork, payroll and employee details and passwords
  • Between different sectors with their own data-reliant supply chains (e.g. transport and healthcare): the Internet of Things demonstrates the almost endless possibilities for greater collaboration between sectors. However, data not typically exposed to public networks is now being used in ‘big data’ analytics across multiple organisations, which may or may not have a relationship with the original data owner. Data has become a key asset that is being traded between organisations and may come from a variety of sources, including end-users themselves
  • For data that is to be used to make critical decisions for a business model, industry or sector: for example, what impact would compromised traffic-light data have on an autonomous vehicle? Or what would be the effects of a malicious attack on the stock market where the decimal point is shifted forwards one place?

Proposals must be collaborative and led by a business. We expect to fund mainly industrial research projects in which a business partner will generally attract up to 50% public funding for their project costs (60% for SMEs).

We expect projects to range in size from total costs of £150,000 to £750,000, although we may consider projects outside this range.

This is a two-stage competition that opens for applicants on 23 March 2015. The deadline for registration is at noon on 29 April 2015.

The deadline for expressions of interest is at noon on 6 May 2015.

For more information click here https://interact.innovateuk.org/competition-display-page/-/asset_publisher/RqEt2AKmEBhi/content/protecting-data-in-industry

If you are interested and require support please contact Naomi Arblaster in ECD: N.Arblaster@staffs.ac.uk, Tel: 01785 353519

Funding competition for pre start-ups and SMEs

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Innovate UK invites proposals for SMART 2015-2016 – Round 6, to support Small and Medium sized Enterprises (SMEs) to engage in R&D projects in strategically important areas: sciences, engineering and technology.

The scheme helps tackling the funding gap experienced by many small and early-stage companies with innovative ideas and high growth ambition and potential.

Three types of grants are available: proof of market, proof of concept and development of prototype. Pre start-ups, start-ups and SMEs from all sectors can apply.

Deadline is Thursday 26 March 2015 at noon.

To know more about it: Smart Round 6

New Modelling Systems for Stratified Medicine – Themed Call for KTPs

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Innovate UK is to invest up to £1 million to establish new Knowledge Transfer Partnerships (KTPs) in developing modelling approaches to support the use of stratified medicine in the UK, across bioinformatics, systems biology, health economics and analytical algorithms.

Stratified medicine means providing the right treatment, at the right time, to the right patient. The grouping, or stratifying, of patients according to the nature of their disease and their response to a particular treatment will improve patient outcomes and reduce ineffective treatment.

This has driven the need for new effective diagnostic tests that will guide patient selection for the most appropriate care pathways. Increasing development costs of new products and reduced healthcare budgets mean that these diagnostic tests need to be validated and evaluated for their potential impact on patient care pathways as early as possible.

Innovate UK’s Stratified Medicine Innovation Platform works in partnership with organisations including government, research councils and leading medical research charities to accelerate the development and uptake of stratified medicine in the UK.

It has identified the need for new modelling approaches to:

  • enable companies to assess more quickly the feasibility and validity of new diagnostic products through bioinformatics and systems biology modelling
  • demonstrate the value of diagnostic tests, evidenced through potential changes to current clinical care pathways, which would justify adoption by care providers and allow real market value to be forecast

Competition Scope

Successful partnerships will enable businesses to advance a product for a stratified approach to treatment, requiring the use of new modelling systems that will either:

  • integrate healthcare and science data, to predict the likelihood of a product demonstrating the intended effect or value in a clinical setting, incorporating approaches such as systems biology or bioinformatics
  • provide innovative multi-parameter algorithms that enhance the predictive strength of a diagnostic test and allow commercialisation
  • provide innovative health economic models for products that will establish new clinical care pathways and allow product adoption

This competition aims to allow healthcare- related businesses to use KTP projects to access the modelling skills necessary to improve decision-making and the evaluation of diagnostic tests. This will allow for faster, more predictive and more accurate development of stratified medicine approaches.

Out of scope will be any modelling approaches that:

a) do not address a stratified approach to patient treatment

b) are not related to the advancement of a potential product

The competition opens for applications on 2 March 2015 and remains open on a rolling basis for applications until noon on 18 November 2015. A briefing webinar for potential applicants will be held on 19 February 2015 (register at: http://bit.ly/1yLNe6d)

The full competition brief is available at: http://bit.ly/1AIUVji

To discuss project ideas or for further information about the KTP programme and application process, contact Dominic Collins (Tel. 01785 353404, email: d.collins@staffs.ac.uk) or Sue Semple (Tel. 01785 353498, email: s.semple@staffs.ac.uk)

Europe for Citizens – Action Grants

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This programme aims to strengthen remembrance and enhance capacity for civic participation at the European Union level. The programme contributes by developing citizens’ organisations’ capacity to engage citizens in the democratic life of the EU.

The Annual Priorities of the programme for 2015 are:

Strand 1: European remembrance

In the context of the 70th anniversary of the end of World War II, priority will be given to projects that focus on:

  • World War II and the associated rise of intolerance that enabled crimes against humanity;
  • The consequences of World War II for the post-war architecture of Europe : its division and the Cold war on the one hand, and the beginning of the European integration process following the Schuman Declaration in 1950 on the other hand.

Strand 2: Democratic engagement and civic participation

Debating on the future of Europe : In the current debate on the European Union in times of the economic crisis and following the European elections of May 2014, there is a need to deepen further the discussion on the future of Europe on what kind of Europe citizens want, also stimulating new forms of civic participation whilst reinforcing those existing. This debate should be based on lessons learned from history and consider in particular the concrete achievements of the European Union.

Such debate should not be limited to citizens already supporting the idea of the European Union, but reach out to citizens who have not been involved so far, or who reject the Union outright or put in question its achievements.

http://eacea.ec.europa.eu/europe-for-citizens_en

The 2015 Calls are now open with a deadline of 2 March 2015

Specific eligibility criteria apply to the different Strands and actions as follows:

Strand 1 – European remembrance

  • Public local/regional authorities or non-profit organisations, including civil society organisations, survivors’ associations, and cultural, youth, educational and research organisations, associations of twinned towns
  • A project must involve organisations from at least one Member State, but preference is given to transnational projects

Strand 2: Democratic engagement and civic participation (action grants)

Town-Twinning

  • Towns/municipalities or their twinning committees or other non-profit organisations representing local authorities
  • Must involve towns from at least two eligible countries of which at least one is an EU Member State

Networks of Towns

  • Towns/municipalities or their twinning committees or networks, other levels of local/regional authorities, federations/associations of local authorities and non-profit organisations representing local authorities; the other organisations involved in the project can also be non-profit Civil Society Organisations
  • Must involve towns from at least four eligible countries of which at least one is an EU Member State

Civil Society Projects

  • Non-profit organisations, including civil society organisations, educational, cultural or research institutions; the other organisations involved in the project can also be public local/regional authorities
  • Must involve organisations from at least three eligible countries of which at least one is an EU Member State

 

Meet the team

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The External Projects Team provides information on external funding, partners, and innovation activities. The team works with researchers and academic staff to help diversify income for Staffordshire University. The team is part of the Enterprise and Commercial Development Department.

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Emma Davies- External Projects Manager: Emma has responsibility for managing the external projects team to identify and realise funding opportunities which make a significant impact on the university’s income diversification programme in line with Staffordshire University’s vision and corporate plan.

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Jose Beech- External Grants Manager: Jose leads the team of staff within the External Projects Team, whose focus is to work closely with colleagues across the institution, providing advice, guidance and support on external funding.

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Marie Pandolfo- Project Development Manager: Marie is responsible for the ESIF Strategy within the University and developing specific projects with internal and external partners.

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Samantha Wong- Contracts and Compliance Officer: Samantha provides internal legal support and expertise in the area of contracts research and funding for Staffordshire University.
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Margaret Bennett- External Projects Officer: Margaret is responsible for identifying potential research funding opportunities, EU funding projects and works seamlessly with academic colleagues to submit applications to funding bodies.

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Esther Knight- External Projects Officer: Esther advises staff on how to use Research Professional, a service which can be directly used to search funding calls that are open and how to search for grants on projects they wish to develop from Research Councils to Europe – and has particular responsibility for the Faculty of Art and Creative Technologies.

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Holly Hoar- External Projects Officer:(Currently on maternity leave) Holly advises staff on how to use Research Professional, a service which can be directly used to search funding calls that are open and how to search for grants on projects they wish to develop from Research Councils to Europe.