BE-ST Project Support Programme

Funding available for collaborative projects between companies and higher education institutions in Scotland that focus on innovative and sustainable solutions for the construction industry and built environment.

Built Environment – Smarter Transformation (BE-ST), formerly Construction Scotland Innovation Centre (CSIC), was set up in 2014 to assist in growing Scotland’s construction industry through supporting the development of skills, innovation, knowledge exchange and collaboration using the skills and expertise of 13 of Scotland’s Higher Education Institutes (HEIs).

BE-ST offers innovation funding to help sustainable innovative projects that are looking to create economic value for Scotland. The projects must be sustainable in nature or lead to sustainable solutions for the built environment. Newly developed solutions could be ground-breaking or incremental and could be related to process, service or business innovation or product and technology development.

BE-ST can support the project at any stage throughout the innovation cycle.

This may include:

• Research and development
• Technical and market feasibility studies
• Scoping and mapping studies
• Design and prototyping
• Demonstration projects
• Independent validation and verification of results

Projects must be led by one or more industry or public sector partners, including at least one academic partner. The project funding can only go to the academic partner to support their transfer of knowledge or expertise to the industry or public sector partner(s).