Mindset: Extended Reality for digital mental health – strand 1

Source: Gov.uk

UK registered businesses can apply for a share of up to £4.5 million across the two strands of the competition. In this strand we will support R&D feasibility studies that provide immersive digital mental health therapeutic solutions.

Eligibility

Opens: 9 October 2023
Closes: 6 December 2023

Description

Innovate UK, part of UK Research and Innovation, will invest up to £4.5 million in innovation projects across the two strands of the competition.
The aim of this competition is to develop digital therapeutic Extended Reality (XR) solutions to provide improved delivery of mental health and wellbeing services.

This competition is split into two strands:

Mindset: Extended reality for digital mental health – strand 1: Feasibility Studies (this strand)
Mindset: Extended reality for digital mental health – strand 2: Industrial Research

Your solution must plan to be applied and trialed following a feasibility study cycle of between 3 to 6 months. It must have the potential to be adopted at scale to form part of the UK’s formal mental healthcare ecosystem.

Your proposal must include the design and features of your solution and how it will be applied.
It is your responsibility to ensure you submit your application to the correct strand for your project. You will not be able to transfer your application and it will not be sent for assessment if it is out of scope.

In applying to this competition, you are entering into a competitive process. This competition closes at 11am UK time on the deadline stated.

Funding type

Grant

Project size:

Your project’s total costs must be between £50,000 and £100,000.

Who can apply

Your project must:

• have total project costs between £50,000 and £100,000
• last between 3 months and 6 months
• carry out all of its project work in the UK
• intend to exploit the results from or in the UK
• start by 1 May 2024
• end by 31 October 2024

If your project has total costs of below £50,000 or above £100,000 you will be made ineligible and will not be sent for assessment.
You must only include eligible project costs in your application.

Projects must always start on the first of the month and this must be stated within your application. Your project start date will be reflected in your grant offer letter if you are successful.

Under current restrictions, this competition will not fund any procurement, commercial, business development or supply chain activity with any Russian or Belarusian entity as lead, partner or subcontractor. This includes any goods or services originating from a Russian or Belarusian source.

Lead organisation

To lead a project or work alone your organisation must be a UK registered business of any size.

You can collaborate with other UK registered organisations, but you are limited to collaborations of no more than five, this includes the lead and up to four partners.

More information on the different types of organisation can be found in our Funding rules.
Academic institutions and RTOs cannot lead or work alone.

Project team
To collaborate with the lead, your organisation must be one of the following UK registered:

• business of any size
• academic institution
• charity
• not for profit
• public sector organisation
• research and technology organisation (RTO)

Each partner organisation must be invited into the Innovation Funding Service (IFS) by the lead to collaborate on a project. Once partners have accepted the invitation, they will be asked to login or to create an account in IFS. They are responsible for entering their own project costs in the application.

Non-funded partners
Your project can include partners that do not receive any of this competition’s funding, for example non-UK businesses. Their costs will count towards the total project costs.

Subcontractors
Subcontractors are allowed in this competition.
Subcontractors can be from anywhere in the UK and you must select them through your usual procurement process.
You can use subcontractors from overseas but must make the case in your application as to why you could not use suppliers from the UK.
You must provide a detailed rationale, evidence of the potential UK contractors you approached and the reasons why they were unable to work with you. We will not accept a cheaper cost as a sufficient reason to use an overseas subcontractor.
All subcontractor costs must be justified and appropriate to the total project costs.

Number of applications
A business can only lead on one application but can be included as a collaborator in two further applications in this strand of the competition.
A business not leading an application, an academic institution, research and technology organisation (RTO), charity, not for profit, or public sector organisation can be included as a collaborator in up to three applications in this strand of the competition.

Previous applications

You can use a previously submitted application to apply for this competition.
We will not award you funding if you have:

failed to exploit a previously funded project
an overdue independent accountant’s report
failed to comply with grant terms and conditions

Subsidy control (and State aid where applicable)

This competition provides funding in line with the Subsidy Control Act 2022. Further information about the Subsidy requirements can be found within the Subsidy Control Act 2022 (legislation.gov.uk).
Innovate UK is unable to award organisations that are considered to be in financial difficulty. We will conduct financial viability and eligibility tests to confirm this is not the case following the application stage.

EU State aid rules now only apply in limited circumstances. Please see our general guidance to check if these rules apply to your organisation.

Further Information

If you are unsure about your obligations under the Subsidy Control Act 2022 or the State aid rules, you should take independent legal advice. We are unable to advise on individual eligibility or legal obligations.

You must always make sure that the funding awarded to you is compliant with all current Subsidy Control legislation applicable in the United Kingdom.

This aims to regulate any advantage granted by a public sector body which threatens to, or actually distorts competition in the United Kingdom or any other country or countries.

Funding

Up to £4.5 million has been allocated to fund innovation projects across the two strands of this competition. Funding will be in the form of a grant.
If your organisation’s work on the project is commercial or economic, your funding request must not exceed the limits below. These limits apply even if your organisation normally acts non-economically but for the purpose of this project will be undertaking commercial or economic activity.

For feasibility studies you could get funding for your eligible project costs of:

• up to 70% if you are a micro or small organisation
• up to 60% if you are a medium sized organisation
• up to 50% if you are a large organisation

For more information on company sizes, please refer to the company accounts guidance.

If you are applying for an award funded under State aid Regulations, the definitions are set out in the European Commission Recommendation of 6 May 2003.

Research participation

The research organisations undertaking non-economic activity as part of the project can share up to 30% of the total eligible project costs. If your consortium contains more than one research organisation undertaking non-economic activity, this maximum is shared between them. Of that 30% you could get funding for your eligible project costs of up to:

• 80% of full economic costs (FEC) if you are a Je-S registered institution such as an academic
• 100% of your project costs if you are an RTO, charity, not for profit organisation, public sector organisation or research organisation