The UK Department of Transport issued an expression of Interest to find innovative ways to reduce maritime emissions and promote technological development in UK maritime. The Maritime 2050 project envisions to enhance UK’s strength on maritime innovation focusing mostly on autonomy and low-carbon technologies.
To support the expression of interest the DfT launches a call of £1M called the Clean Maritime Innovation Call, which will fund technology, process innovations or services within mid TRL (TRL 3-7) that offer significant improvements to systems, timings, processes or technology for clean maritime services and operations.
According to the DfT, there are two stages and the process will be conducted for 7 months minimum:
- Expression of Interest (EoI): opens for 6 weeks and is reviewed by MarRI-UK only.
- Full proposal: invite only, if successful in the expression of interest stage.
The competition closes at midday 12pm UK time on the deadline stated.
Those interested should be informed that the project that they are to submit, should be in mid technology readiness (TRL) level 3-7 stages.
Also, the proposed project should:
- demonstrate good value for money for the UK and potential impact for UK market once further development has been completed.
- have Innovative aspects (e.g. ground-breaking objectives, new technology, process innovations or services), this includes products being used in innovative ways, outside of their original intended use.
- have the potential to reduce GHG gases and/or air quality pollutant emissions from the maritime industry. Preference will be given to projects that show the strongest potential to reduce emissions of greenhouse gases and/or air quality pollutant emissions from the maritime sector.
- have the potential to deliver on the priorities set out in the Clean Maritime Plan and/or Maritime 2050 Zero Emission shipping sub-theme.
- have the potential to offer significant improvements to systems, timings, processes or technology for clean maritime operations.
Topics include but are not limited to:
- Electrification
- Innovative energy efficiency measures
- Alternative propulsion
- Hazard and safety assessment of new fuels
- Energy systems
- Alternate fuels
The projects that will score well against the criteria below, will receive funding, according to DfT:
- Strategic fit with Maritime 2050.
- Value for money for the UK and potential impact of the exploitation of your idea once further development has been completed.
- Project deliverables such as time, cost and quality (including risks).
- Viability given timescales, deliverables, and resources.
- Environmental impact, i.e. the amount of carbon adjustments/air quality improvements your project will achieve compare to current technology
This is an Expression of Interest (EoI) competition. Successful applicants will be invited to submit full proposal (Stage 2). A decision to proceed to Stage 2 will depend on the outcomes from this EoI. Changes from your EoI to proposal will be monitored. Unjustified major change is not acceptable.
Funding:
In addition, funding awards up to £250K, with a mix of funding levels to support a range of readiness levels.
Under the possibility that there are many proposals that meet the criteria then they will opt to fund a majority of smaller projects requiring less funding to have a wide range of initiatives supported, and only a few funded at the higher level.
In the event that there are not many proposals submitted, then a greater proportion of proposals could be funded at the higher level, or the money could be reserved for a further bidding round.
Projects not being funded:
- Are unrelated to reduction of Maritime emissions to air (GHGs and/or air quality pollutants).
- Are approaching market readiness
- Offer only incremental updates to existing abatement options
To lead a project:
- be a UK based business of any size to lead a research project
- be a UK based business of any size, an academic organisation, or a research and technology organisation (RTO) to lead a capital investment project
- Carry out your maritime research or technology development project work in the UK
- Intend to exploit the results from or in the UK
- This is open to single business as well as consortiums.
Funding/Bids should be match funded, as presented below:
Match funding: in the form of an identical cash injection from the bidder, to match the amount provided by us, or it could in the form of staffing resource to work on the project. It could also be to fund some of the project, in the case of smaller business, but receive the bulk of the funding from us.
In any case a business case for how they will match fund, or why they cannot, should be submitted alongside the bid.
- To comply with State Aid, a strict requirement will be that we will fund:
70% for a small business, with 30% from the bidder,
60% for a medium-sized business, 40% from bidder,
50% for a large business, 50% from bidder.
Small business: an upper limit of £25M in turnover, less than 250 employees and gross assets less than £12.5M.
Medium business: having £25M – £500M per year in turnover.
Large business: any business with more than 250 employees and more than £500M per year turnover.
Dates:
The following dates have been updated as the Clean Maritime Call deadline has now been extended -as of September 2019:
Stage 1
- 29 July 2019: Expression of Interest (EoI) submission open
- 25 October 2019: EoI submission closed
- 28 October – 6 December 2019: EoI assessment
Stage 2
- 9 December 2019: Invitation to submit full proposal release, submission for full proposal open
- 14 February 2020: Submission for full proposal closed
- 17 February – 10 April 2020: Proposal assessment
- 13 April 2020: Funding award announcement
You may submit your application in MarRi-Uk, online.
