High-tech innovators sought by Technology Strategy Board

Competition will award £18 million to firms with ideas that could create growth

Engineering firms across Britain are being invited to compete for support to develop innovative technologies that could create growth areas for the economy. 

The Government–backed Technology Strategy Board (TSB) competition will seek to identify and award up to £18m funding to the most innovative businesses, in “order to keep the UK at the forefront of modern technology and enhance quality of life”.

Collaborative applications are sought from organisations operating in a range of technology areas where Britain has strengths, including advanced materials, biosciences, electronics, photonics and electrical systems, high-value manufacturing, information and communications technology, and nanotechnology.

“We are particularly keen to hear from organisations with ideas for ‘enabling technologies’,” said David Bott, the Technology Strategy Board’s director of innovation programmes. 

“An enabling technology’ is one that can lead to the creation of other products and processes that support future development. In this way, it establishes long-term opportunities for economic development.”

The Technology Strategy Board will be opening the competition on 12 October. The organisation is hoping that it will attract innovations from a variety of businesses with novel ideas that have reached proof-of-concept stage.

The competition will focus on “technology inspired” proposals. By this, the TSB means innovations where recent technological discoveries or breakthroughs can enable the development of products and services. They could have multiple applications in several sectors.

Last year the TSB hosted a technology inspired feasibility competition, in which 69 companies received a share of £1.5 million to fund their early stage projects. 

This year, the Technology Strategy Board is following on with £18 million in funding for consortia to conduct in-depth development work lasting up to three years. It is expected that some of these consortia will involve companies and technologies that took part in the earlier feasibility studies, although success in last year’s competition does not guarantee success in this competition, the TSB said.