Funding competition Accelerating the building of housing using geospatial intelligence: SBRI competition

Organisations can apply for a share of £250,000, including VAT, to investigate how technology can be used to monitor developments of all sizes and types.

Competition opens: Monday 15 July 2019
Registration closes: Wednesday 21 August 2019 12:00pm

This competition is now closed.

Description

This is a Small Business Research Initiative (SBRI) competition with funding provided by the GovTech Catalyst Waltham Forest Council.

The aim of the competition is to investigate how technology can be used to monitor developments of all sizes and types, building an accurate picture of development status from permission to completion and occupation.

The outcome should be solutions which create an accurate timeline of development. The developed tool will be tested to ensure it enables planners to make more informed decisions.

The overall programme will be delivered over 2 phases. This is phase 1 of a potential 2-phase competition. A decision to proceed with phase 2 will depend on the outcomes from phase 1. Only successful applicants from phase 1 will be able to apply to take part in phase 2.

Phase 1: research and development contracts, feasibility study

The first phase involves research and development contracts being awarded to demonstrate technical feasibility of the proposed solution.

Phase 2: research and development contracts, prototype development and testing

The second phase involves up to 2 R&D contracts being awarded to businesses chosen from the successful phase 1 applicants.

Funding type

Procurement

Project size

We expect projects to range in size up to total costs of £50,000, including VAT, for each organisation.

Who can apply

To lead a project, you can:

be an organisation of any size
work alone or with others from business, the research base or the third sector as subcontractors

Phase 1 projects should start from 15 November 2019 and last up to 3 months. We expect to fund up to 5 projects.

Project costs should range in size up to total costs of £50,000 including VAT per organisation.

You must work closely with Waltham Forest Council in east London.

Phase 1: research and development contracts, feasibility study

The first phase involves research and development contracts being awarded to demonstrate technical feasibility of the proposed solution.

A total of up to £250,000 including VAT, is allocated to phase 1 of the competition.

It is anticipated that the feasibility study research and development (R&D) contracts will be in the region of up to £50,000 including VAT. This is for each project for up to 3 months. The assessors will consider fair value in making their evaluation.

We would welcome bids that bring together a consortium of sector specialists.

Phase 2: research and development (R&D) contracts, prototype development and testing

The second phase involves up to 2 R&D contracts being awarded to businesses chosen from the successful phase 1 applicants.

Up to £500,000, including VAT will be allocated for each contract, in order to develop a prototype and undertake field testing for up to 12 months.

Funding

A total of up to £250,000, including VAT, is allocated to phase 1.

We expect the feasibility study R&D contracts to be up to £50,000, including VAT, for each project.

Applications must have at least 50% of the contract value attributed directly and exclusively for research and development (R&D) services. R&D can cover solution exploration and design. It can also include prototyping and field-testing the product or service. R&D does not include:

commercial development activities such as quantity production
supply to establish commercial viability or to recover R&D costs
integration, customisation or incremental adaptations and improvements to existing products or processes

Your proposal

Waltham Forest is investigating how technology can be used to monitor developments of all sizes and types, building an accurate picture of development status from permission to completion and occupation.

The outcome of this competition should be solutions which construct an accurate timeline of development. This means bringing together the diverse sources of information which already exist, and exploring potential new sources of information for the monitoring of development sites. The tool developed will be tested to ensure that it enables planners to make more informed decisions.

Specific themes

We are particularly encouraging applications that:

demonstrate how Waltham Forest can blend existing council owned datasets, such as Council Tax records, with other datasets such as postal address files to build an accurate timeline of development
explore how to apply new technologies to the collection and analysis of data for monitoring, from satellite imaging to crowdsourcing and collaborative maintenance of data
investigate how a system might assess the uncertainty present in various data sources and learn from interactions to increase the accuracy of key statistics and forecast estimated dates of completion
will be tested and proven to work with planners

Project types

For phase 1 we are funding technical feasibility projects.

Projects we will not fund

We will not fund projects that cover:

the assessment of demand for housing
automation of the collection of Community Infrastructure Levy (CIL) or other receipts

15 July 2019: London briefing event
15 July 2019: Competition opens
21 August 2019 12:00pm: Registration closes
28 August 2019 12:00pm: Competition closes
18 October 2019: Applicants notified
15 November 2019: Phase 1 contracts awarded
15 November 2019: Feedback

Before you start

To apply:

register online using the green button
read the guidance for applicants for this competition
consider attending one of the briefing events listed in ‘Dates’
complete and upload your online application to our secure server

We will not accept late submissions. Your application is confidential.

A selected panel of experts will assess the quality your application. You must use Microsoft Word for the application form or your application will be ineligible.

Background and further information

About SBRI competitions

SBRI provides innovative solutions to challenges faced by the public sector. This can lead to better public services and improved efficiency and effectiveness. SBRI supports economic growth and enables the development of innovative products and services. It does this through the public procurement of research and development (R&D). SBRI generates new business opportunities for companies and provides a route to market for their ideas. It also bridges the seed funding gap experienced by many early-stage companies.

Further help and information

There is a LinkedIn group for applicants wanting to collaborate and get advice on applying to this competition.

You can find information on how to enter this competition in the invitation to tender document, which is available for download on our secure site after registration.

Questions related to the particular requirements of this competition should be addressed directly to oliver.norman@walthamforest.gov.uk.

If you want help to find a project partner, contact the Knowledge Transfer Network.

If you need more information, email us at support@innovateuk.ukri.org or call the competition helpline on 0300 321 4357 between 9am and 5:30pm, Monday to Friday.

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