Made Smarter Innovation – Sustainable Smart Factory Competition

UK registered businesses, collaborating with other UK registered businesses, research organisations, public sector organisations or charities, can lead funding bids for research and development projects for innovations in digital technologies to reduce environmental impact within manufacturing processes.

This competition is administered by Innovate UK (IUK) – the UK’s innovation agency – with funding from the Industrial Strategy Challenge Fund (ISCF).  IUK works with people, companies and partner organisations to de-risk, enable and support innovation, and promote UK economic growth. IUK is part of UK Research and Innovation (UKRI) – a non-departmental public body, funded by a grant-in-aid from the UK government through the Department for Business, Energy & Industrial Strategy (BEIS).

Through the Made Smarter Innovation programme, Innovate UK is investing £147 million to accelerate the development of game changing digital manufacturing ideas.

The Sustainable Smart Factory competition is split into two strands:

• Strand 1 – Digital innovation with manufacturing data.
• Strand 2 – Digital innovation in manufacturing processes.

The aims of the competition are to deliver a resilient, flexible, more productive, and environmentally sustainable UK manufacturing sector, as well as to develop new technologies that can be exploited commercially across manufacturing worldwide. This will be achieved through the creation and novel application of digital technologies.