Opportunity status:
Submission Closed
Funders:
UKRI via RAi UK
Funding type:
Grant
Total fund:
£300,000
Maximum award:
£100,000
Publication date:
15 October 2024
Stage 1: Outline submission open:
21 October 2024
Stage 1: Outline submission deadline:
8 November 2024 (16:00 GMT)
Stage 2: Full application (only for successful Stage 1 applicants) notification:
22 November 2024
Stage 2: Full application deadline:
20 December 2024 (16:00 GMT)
Apply for funding for an Enterprise Fellowship to commercialise a product or service for responsible and trustworthy artificial intelligence to ensure society deploys and uses AI in a responsible way.
This fellowship is a 12-to-18-month accelerator programme to support university-based researchers, with an entrepreneurial mindset, to translate their research into new products or services. Your proposed project should demonstrate a clear path from the conceptualisation to execution, backed by a business plan or canvas. Ultimately, the project should demonstrate the use of responsible AI practices or tools as part of a spin-out which will benefit the economy, society, culture, health, the environment or quality of life.
You and your organisation must be eligible for UKRI funding.
Funding is available for 3-6 Enterprise Fellowship grants. RAi UK will fund up to £100,000 at 80% full economic cost (fEC). For the avoidance of doubt, £100,000 is the 80% fEC figure.
Successful projects must begin by 1 April 2025 and last up to 18 months.
This opportunity is part of the RAi UK programme which supports research on the technical, social, legal and ethical challenges surrounding responsible and trustworthy artificial intelligence.
A briefing seminar was held on 25 October 11:00 GMT.
Table of contents
How we will assess your application
Grant additional conditions (GACs)
Who can apply
Responsible and trustworthy artificial intelligence needs an interdisciplinary ecosystem that adopts Equality, Diversity and Inclusivity (EDI), Trusted Research, and Responsible Research and Innovation (RRI) as fundamental principles. We are therefore particularly interested in supporting under-represented groups, and projects that look to address urgent societal needs. Successful applicants will be expected to collaborate with the wider RAi UK programme.
We would encourage researchers and academics from all the disciplines that are supported by UKRI to apply, including but not limited to:
- Applied Ethics
- Computer Science
- Engineering
- Humanities
- Innovation Studies
- International Studies
- Law
- Organisational Management
- Philosophy
- Politics
- Psychology
- Sociology
RAi UK is leading this call on behalf of UKRI. Standard UKRI eligibility rules apply. Enterprise Fellowship grants are open to individuals from:
- UK higher education institutions
- public sector research establishments
- research council institutes
- UKRI-approved independent research organisations and NHS bodies with research capacity
Read the guidance on institutional eligibility.
Please note, applicants from non-academic organisations and academic organisations outside of the UK are not eligible to apply for this funding call.
Applicants must be resident in the UK and meet at least one of the bullets below:
- employed at the submitting research organisation at lecturer level or above
- hold a fixed-term contract that extends beyond the duration of the proposed project, and the host research organisation is prepared to give you all the support normal for a permanent employee
- hold an UKRI, Royal Society or Royal Academy of Engineering fellowship aimed at later career stages (excl. industry employees)
- hold fellowships under other schemes (please contact us to check eligibility, which is considered on a case-by-case basis).
Holders of postdoctoral level fellowships are not eligible to apply.
What we’re looking for
RAi UK aims to accelerate the transfer of new learning into products and services that will ensure the rapid adoption of responsible and trustworthy AI in key sectors of the economy to improve productivity. We also aim to maximise the impact of responsible and trustworthy artificial intelligence research on the economy, society, culture, policy, health, the environment and quality of life.
While researchers are encouraged to propose activities with any appropriate impact type(s), we particularly encourage proposals that fit the RAI UK vision, i.e.:
- Help enable responsible AI to power benefits for everyday life.
- Work in collaboration with researchers, industry professionals, policymakers and stakeholders to drive an ecosystem that will be responsive to the needs of society.
Note that all proposals submitted will be assessed equally, irrespective of which impact type(s) the proposal aligns with.
The goal of this Enterprise Fellowship is to afford researchers the time to refine their value proposition and business plan, seek mentorship, and pursue longer-term investment to support their business idea. Projects must demonstrate that their ideas have originality, protectable IP and potential for significant impact. Projects should clearly define the challenge, the value proposition of their approach, and articulate the markets they will target. Where possible, they should demonstrate market fit or identify potential clients for their products and services. Applicants must also have appropriate intellectual property rights to use the innovation as envisaged.
We welcome proposals from researchers who want to start their entrepreneurial journey as well as those who have already made progress on their business idea. For example, proposals might come from:
- Researchers with a novel idea, breaking new ground in a field of responsible AI.
- Researchers already developing a spin-out but needing funds for compute, access to training, test facilities, or to refine their pitch.
- Researchers already at the point of deploying a product or service but needing funds for further R&D.
If you are planning to include international collaborators (e.g., industry or academic partners), please read the RAI UK’s Trusted Research principles and complete the checklist. Note that based on the answers to this checklist, you may need to escalate this within your institution or department for a decision.
The activities that are funded through this call will run alongside, and are expected to complement, the existing RAi UK programme and contribute to the world-leading research into the technical, social, legal and ethical challenges that surround responsible and trustworthy artificial intelligence. In addition to collaborating with the wider programme, it is anticipated that successful applicants will also engage with stakeholders and users of the research, who are essential to the design, conduct and impact of application-orientated research.
Funding available
In total, up to £300,000 funding is available through the RAi UK Programme to support 3-6 Enterprise Fellowship grants for up to 18 months. RAi UK will fund Enterprise Fellowships up to £100,000 at 80% full economic cost (fEC). For the avoidance of doubt, £100,000 is the 80% fEC figure. Grants will be funded at 80% of the stated fEC.
The grant can support any directly incurred (DI) costs, such as research staff time, consumables, and travel to the project partners, and also directly allocated (DA) costs, such as investigator time or overheads. Typically, these Fellowships are expected to support the salary costs of one researcher, which might be the lead applicant or a postdoctoral researcher in their team, in addition to other business support costs, including, for example (but not limited to), mentor support, market analysis, product testing, travel, relevant training and business development support.
Prospective applicants are not required to have existing collaborations or contacts within the RAi UK programme. Current RAi UK investigators cannot be costed on the grant.
Equipment over £10,000 in value (including VAT) is not available through this call. Smaller items of equipment (individually under £10,000) should be in the Directly Incurred – Other Costs heading and will need robust justification.
Please note that due to the nature of this funding, additional requirements on spending profile, reporting, monitoring and evaluation as well as grant extensions will apply. This will be reflected in the grant additional conditions, and those funded will need to comply with them. Further details are provided in the additional information section below. In particular, please note that any projects funded through this call will have a fixed start and end date, and that no slippage to this date will be permitted.
Note that any deviation from the spending profile beyond 5% is not allowed (any underspend will not be refunded, nor any overspend allowed). No-cost extensions cannot be allowed.
Our Support
In addition to up to £100,000 equity-free funding (awarded at 80% FEC), RAi UK is able to offer the following support to successful applicants:
- Space: the Royal Academy of Engineering Enterprise Hub has kindly offered access to its touchdown space in London, the Taylor Centre, which provides a meeting space and coworking for its community of entrepreneurs. This can be booked in accordance with the booking policy.
- Experienced Mentors: the Royal Academy of Engineering has kindly offered to help us identify RAEng Fellows to act as mentors for successful projects.
- Research visitor status: facilitate access to RAi UK partner space as a research visitor.
- Cohort experience: a cohort of entrepreneurs to learn from and share best practice with. Projects will be connected to accelerator programmes across the UK that RAi UK has relationships with.
- Expert networks: access to our network of experts and advisors; we will match projects to our cohort of researchers across our range of projects, where specific expertise is needed from RAi UK.
How to apply
Applicants should ensure they are aware of, and comply with, any internal institutional deadlines that may be in place.
Stage 1: Outline submission
The Outline submission stage will open on 21 October 2024, and close on 8 November. Please note the deadline for submitting your outline is 16:00 GMT on 8 November.
Outlines will include:
- your background and how you nurtured the idea
- the problem you aim to solve, and the maturity level of your idea
- how advanced is your commercialisation plan.
Following a panel-based assessment process, we will invite a select group of proposals to prepare full applications.
Stage 2: Full Application
Full Applications will be by invite only, determined by assessment of Outline applications. This stage will open on 22 November 2024, with a deadline to submit of 20 December 2024 (16:00 GMT).
The Full Application will require further details on your ambitions, business plan, IP strategy, and target market, as well as a detailed project plan for the Enterprise Fellowship.
Full Applications will be submitted via Grant Lounge, our online application portal. Invited applicants will receive details and instructions via email to log in to the Grant Lounge.
A proposal template will be made available to applicants invited to this stage; the template will not be made available prior to this. All sections of this template should be completed, and it should be submitted as a single PDF, including relevant Letters of Support and the Business Plan Pro forma.
Proposals must contain an explanation of how the proposed work aligns with the objectives of the RAI UK programme and fits with its vision. Applicants should be explicit about the need for this funding and the added value their proposed activity brings to a specific area of the programme. All proposals must also demonstrate how they will ascertain adherence to their spending profile.
Key documents to submit:
- Proposal using the submission template provided
- Spreadsheet describing business plan (template provided)
- Reference Letter
- Institutional Letter of Support
A signed Letter of Support from your host institution should detail any support they will offer (e.g., mentoring, facilities) and confirming claims to any foreground IP in the project.
A Reference Letter should be included from a senior academic colleague, mentor, or contact in industry confirming the applicant’s suitability for this stream of funding, and explaining why the applicant will be able to lead a spinout.
RAi UK reserves the right not to fund a project if ethical concerns exist and/or are raised by reviewers or panels members. Concerns may include overlooked aspects, or issues not appropriately accounted for. You must complete the EDI and RRI sections to identify challenges and demonstrate how they will be addressed as part of the project.
An eligible member of the research investigation team will be identified as the Main Contact at both Outline and Full Application stages; ordinarily this will be the Fellow/Project Lead, but this is not a requirement. The Main Contact will submit the bid and be the point of contact with RAi UK for all communication during the application process and post award (if successful). The Main Contact will be responsible for disseminating communications from RAi UK to other team members.
RAi UK must receive your Full Application by 16:00 GMT on 20 December 2024.
How we will assess your application
Assessment process
Stage 1: Outline submission
Outline submissions will be considered by a panel of experts in order to select a limited number of proposals to prepare Full Applications. Assessment at this stage will focus on parts 1 and 2 in the Assessment Criteria only, i.e., the applicant and the potential of the product or service.
Stage 2: Full Application
Invited Full Applications that are deemed to meet the Assessment Criteria will be considered by a panel of experts, and a shortlisted subset of these proposals will progress to an interview for the Enterprise Fellow. We anticipate these interviews will take place either in late January or early February 2025.
Funding decisions will be made based on a rank ordered list as well as the nature of the projects to ensure a balance of projects across application domains.
Assessment Criteria
All submitted Enterprise Fellowship proposals will be evaluated according to the following criteria:
1. The Applicant
- Their role, ambition and commitment
- Fit with the aims of the programme
- Nature and level of past achievements
- The expected benefits of the fellowship to the awardee
- Evidence of their entrepreneurial potential, desire to learn, commercial acumen, potential to act as a role model
2. The product or service
- Quality and potential of the innovation
- Is it ready for commercialisation?
- Early evidence of market need
- Practicality to be delivered at scale
- Protection of and access to intellectual property rights
- Consideration and understanding of regulatory requirements
- The potential for benefits to society
3. The team
- The fit of the team with their assigned roles
- The level of commitment of collaborating parties
- Expertise/positions that are noticeably absent, and plans to address this
- Level of support from the university/TTO or other partners
4. The Business Plan
- Commercial credibility of the business model
- Identification of suitable target market/customers
- Access to/identification of necessary facilities, supply chains and expertise
- Potential for a self-sustaining and scalable business
- Expected benefits to UK economy
- Level of additional funding already secured, if applicable
- Potential to secure any necessary additional funding (grants/investment/boot-strap)
- Non-financial resources already secured, and plans for additional resources
- The overall likelihood of success
Contact details
For help and advice on costings and writing your proposal please contact your research office in the first instance, allowing sufficient time for your organisation’s submission process.
Any queries regarding the call or submission of proposals should be directed to the RAi UK operations team: info@rai.ac.uk. Please include Enterprise Fellowships in the subject line of your email.
Our working hours are Monday to Friday, 09:00 to 16:00 UK Time, excluding bank holidays and other holidays.
Additional info
Background
This Enterprise Fellowship call is part of the RAi UK programme, a £31M strategic investment by the UK Government in the area of responsible and trustworthy AI. RAi UK acts as a focal point for a broad range of initiatives to work across the community to co-create with all stakeholders an ecosystem to meet society’s needs for justice, equity, sustainability, and inclusivity. RAi UK adopts a strong human-centred approach aligned with the UK AI strategy, to provide platforms for technological futures that promote inclusive and positive outcomes. RAi UK moves beyond “making technology responsible and trustworthy” by ensuring the benefits and risks of AI can be recognised and governed by all those whose lives and livelihoods are affected by it.
RAi UK works to ensure society deploys and uses AI in a responsible way. Our approach is to equip the AI community with a toolkit that includes technological innovations, case studies, guidelines, policies and frameworks for all key sectors of the economy. To achieve this, RAi UK works in collaboration with researchers, industry professionals, policymakers and stakeholders to drive an ecosystem that will be responsive to the needs of society. It is led by a team of experienced, well-connected leaders from all four nations of the UK, with complementary backgrounds, committed to an inclusive approach to the management of the programme. This ecosystem consists of mechanisms to (i) co-create research with industry and the public (ii) establish contextual understandings of responsible and trustworthy AI for users, customers, and developers and (iii) develop pathways to scale the use of human-centred AI across society, industry and commerce.
Grant additional conditions (GACs)
Please note that due to the nature of this funding stream, there will be specific spending requirements, monitoring and evaluation.
Awards will be confirmed upon acceptance of non-negotiable Terms and Conditions, which will be set out in the Award Letter.
The project team from each funded project will be expected to engage fully with the programme, including participating in RAi UK activities and events, alongside attending partner meetings as required during the lifetime of the project, and reporting including on commencing, mid-project, and at the end of the project. In addition, within one month of the end of the project, a final report will be submitted to the RAi UK Executive Management Team highlighting the project outcomes and impact.
Supporting documents