Contracts for Innovation: Resource Efficient Construction Impacts

Overview

The Department for Energy Security and Net Zero (DESNZ), in collaboration with Innovate UK, will invest up to £3 million in this Contracts for Innovation competition.

The aim of this competition is to build on the DESNZ Unlocking Resource Efficiency research by supporting organisations to deliver an impact validation report for a resource efficiency solution.

This should be informed by a demonstration which may be carried out as part of the project or otherwise conducted within the last five years.

The innovative resource efficiency solutions should address themes in one of the following strands:

• Resource Efficient Construction Impacts (this strand)
• Resource Efficient Chemicals Impacts
• Resource Efficient Automotive Impacts

This is a single phase competition.

Scope

Innovate UK and DESNZ are collaborating with the chemicals, construction and automotive sectors to accelerate and increase the adoption of innovative resource efficient technologies, low carbon materials and circular business models. This is supporting the government’s commitment to transition the UK to a Net Zero, circular economy.

This competition will focus on the impact validation of resource efficiency solutions. This competition will support the development and delivery of high maturity demonstrations, and the validation of demonstrators from recent (within the last five years) research and development projects.

This competition will:

• enable efficient integration of technologies into targeted industrial sectors
• support innovative suppliers for market readiness
• provide more granular evidence on the potential impact of resource efficiency solutions to help meet the UK’s territorial carbon budget targets

As a minimum, proposals into this competition must relate to solutions at Technology Readiness Level (TRL) 5 or higher. If you have validated your solution at TRL5 (in a relevant environment) your project should be to validate up to TRL7 (in an operational environment) and gather operational data to develop a Life Cycle Analysis (LCA).

If you have already validated at TRL7, your project should be to gather operational data to develop an LCA.

In both cases, the solution should still be a prototype or custom built system, not a full commercial version. You must show evidence of this, the testing and validation previously undertaken as part of your application and identify the TRL that you expect to be at start and end of the project.

This strand: Resource Efficient Construction Impact

Projects should focus on innovative solutions that will improve resource efficiency and reduce lifecycle emissions across the construction and construction materials sectors.

You must demonstrate a credible and practical route to market, so your application must include an assessment of the commercial viability of your solution and a plan to commercialise your results.

Demonstration

A key project deliverable, that must be included in your milestones, is a demonstration of the solution. The further validation of demonstrations and trials from recent research and development projects is also in scope, provided these meet the eligibility requirements for this competition. Costs for retrospective work cannot be claimed, only new analysis to validate the potential impact of the demonstrated technology.

The demonstration must take place in an environment representative of where the solution will be deployed, allowing for effective evaluation. As part of your project milestones, you are encouraged to invite stakeholders from your target sector to a demonstration event. The demonstration must take place in a setting where potential customers and industry representatives can witness the solution as a compelling business proposition.

If your own organisation does not have operations in the relevant sector, it is expected to include an integration supporter, for example, a trusted sector representative in your project to help facilitate the demonstration and trialling of your solution. In their role as potential future customers, they will be well placed to propose an appropriately representative environment.

You will be expected to collaborate with your integration supporter to achieve this, securing all necessary permissions and approvals.

Example environments include:

• within a manufacturing process
• within a recovery or recycling facility
• within a remanufacturing, re-use or repair facility
• in an end-use site, such as a construction project
• within a customer-facing environment, such as retail

This list is not exhaustive, and other environments may be more appropriate to demonstrate certain types of solutions.

You should de-risk all aspects of your project before submitting a bid to this competition, ensuring it can be delivered in line with the requirements of DESNZ and Innovate UK.

Impact Validation Report

Projects must produce an impact validation report, informed by measuring and analysing data to evaluate the lifecycle impacts and commercial scale-up potential of the demonstrated resource efficiency solution. This should identify the solution’s potential to decarbonise the target sector and contribute to UK territorial carbon savings.

The impact validation report should compare baseline data related to the competition theme and outline the improvement from your solution using data from the demonstration or trial.

The collected data could include measurements of resources or time taken to complete a task, or the costs incurred before and after adoption of the technology. You might also include a survey of producers or customers to solicit feedback and to anticipate cost benefit. In all cases the collection of objective data where possible is preferred over the collection of subjective feedback.

We expect you to consult with the sector and (or) your dedicated integration supporter to identify the appropriate impact indicators to track the relevant standards that apply within the sector.

The impact validation report is a key deliverable and must be included as part of your milestones. 

Specific themes

For applications in this Resource Efficient Construction Impacts strand your project can focus on one main theme:

• reductions in the embodied carbon of new buildings, retrofit of existing buildings, and infrastructure through the use of lower carbon materials
• reuse of construction products and components
• lifetime extension and re-purposing of buildings and infrastructure
• lean design of buildings and structures, for example, to reduce over-specification and reduce resource use
• design for disassembly, reuse, and recycling
• recovery of materials and components for reuse and recycling

You must focus on one main theme but your project may cross over into other themes.

Project duration

Between 3 and 5 months

Must start after 01 November 2025

End by 31 March 2025

Contract value

Have total costs of between £50,000 and £300,000, inclusive of VAT

It is expected that the majority of projects will have costs less than £100,000

Funding rates

100% funded

Eligibility criteria

• Funding is for prototype development and evaluation which can include prototyping, demonstrating, piloting, testing and validation of new or improved products, processes or services in environments representative of real-life operating conditions.
• Projects must be led by an organisation of any size, including those based in the EU, EEA or internationally
• Contracts will be awarded to a single entity only
• Subcontractors can be used for specialist skills and can be businesses, research organisations, research and technology organisations or the third sector(charities, social enterprises and voluntary groups)
• You must select whether you are VAT registered before entering your eligible project costs
• If you are VAT registered, you must enter your eligible project costs exclusive of VAT and your total eligible project costs inclusive of VAT must not exceed £5 million
• If you are not VAT registered, you must enter your eligible project costs exclusive of VAT and your total project costs must not exceed £5 million