1: Launch-pad Fund
£1-15K per project
TRL 2-4
Duration up to 6 months
Seed corn funding for idea translation, first steps toward commercialisation and starting new relationships between academic and external organisations leading to new policies, practices or ideas generation leading to regional impact.
Funding for higher-risk activities, including feasibility studies, early-stage prototyping and proof-of-concept, while the project can also be focused on policy development.
Activities supported by the Launch-pad funding: -
This funding aims to establish and strengthen long-term collaborations between businesses and academics by fostering early-stage knowledge exchange and strategic alignment. It provides seed funding to achieve early-stage translation (TRL 2-4) to build relationships and prove technical or commercial feasibility to support the translation of ideas and technology, supporting activities such as:
- Knowledge exchange and cluster/network building.
- Prototyping and generating early performance data to prove application to industry/market need.
- Market discovery to validate a market including end-user engagement.
- Market research to establish the size of a market, competitor analysis, IP landscaping and external regulatory advice or external commercial evaluations.
- Workshops and sandpits to initiate new academia-industry collaborations and promote adoption of new technologies/approaches.
- Scoping exercises and feasibility studies to explore potential innovations.
- Showcases to facilitate knowledge exchange between academia and external organisations.
- Thematic knowledge exchange and public engagement to support NESCA’s community and ecosystem growth.
- Policy-influencing activities to strengthen engagement with external partners.
Launch-pad applications should deliver one or more of the following types of outcomes: -
- Public engagement and knowledge exchange leading to a change in understanding.
- Promote knowledge exchange and drive place-based impact, contributing to increased partnership working with non-HEIS and policy development in resilient communications and space.
- Early-stage commercialisation
- Follow-on knowledge exchange or commercialisation funding application.
- Support skills and capacity building, supply chain development, job retention, and attract regional investment in space-resilient communications.
Launch-pad applications should demonstrate: -
- The relevance and need for the proposed activity within the North East space sector.
- Commitment from all partners and a clear rationale for collaboration.
- A defined market need and the novelty of the technology or solution.
- Potential for impact and its significance to industry or society.
- A strong follow-on activity plan and long-term sustainability.
- Clear knowledge exchange and innovation outcomes.
- Well-defined, measurable outputs, outcomes, and impacts (See Annex 1 for examples).
Launch-pad requirement for contribution from external partner: -
- A direct financial contribution is welcome but not expected. In-kind contributions should be sought and included in the letters of support.
2: Lift-off Fund
£15-65K per project
TRL 2-4
Duration up to 6 months
Projects requiring sustained funding to deliver a defined impact. Funding for advancing the commercialisation of research technologies, policies or partnerships.
Activities supported by the Lift-off funding: -
- Projects should aim to achieve TRL 4-7.
- Funded activities must deliver tangible outcomes, such as technology demonstrations, policy implementation, licensable technologies, spinouts, and process/product development new to the partner or the market.
- Follow-on funding may support larger technical development programmes co-developed with end users to achieve commercially identified milestones, these are typically 12-18 months in duration.
- Activities that prove technical and/or commercial feasible including proof of concept studies, prototype development and testing (e.g. evaluation of prototypes or 'demonstrators') and scoping exercises to ensure the technology is designed to meet user demands from the outset.
- Policy scoping or policy projects should strengthen engagement with external partners, even where the immediate goal is not commercialisation.
Lift-off applications should deliver one or more of the following types of outcomes:
- Promote knowledge exchange and drive place-based impact, contributing to SME growth and policy development in resilient communications and space.
- Lead to a spin-out company, new IP, licensing agreements, follow-on translational funding, or advancing collaboration with industrial partners (e.g. UKSA NSIP call, Knowledge Transfer Partnership (KTP) or an industry-funded PhD studentship).
- Support skills and capacity building, supply chain development, job creation, and attract regional investment in space-resilient communications.
- Demonstrate readiness for proof-of-concept funding, where the underpinning research has been completed with demonstrable outputs.
Lift-off applications should demonstrate:
- A clearly established commercial opportunity or policy development need, evidenced in the application.
- Novel and translational approaches addressing a specific market need.
- A genuine commercial or policy development opportunity with market potential, supported by evidence.
- Industry or civic need and commitment, demonstrated through a relevant partner providing cash or in-kind contributions.
- • A clear potential to support the growth of the North East space-based economy and community.
Note: For Proof-of-Concept projects, matters relating to IP management and dissemination of project results should be discussed with your university's IP Commercialisation or Technology Transfer Office.
For Lift-off applications, a member of your TTO (or IP Commercialisation) team should review your application's IP section for all commercialisation projects.
Lift-off requirement for contributions from external Partners:
A project partner with a committed 15% cash or In-kind contribution is expected.
The non-HEI partner(s) should provide cash or in-kind support commensurate with the commercial opportunity. For commercialisation projects, the contribution from the partner must be discussed with your University TTO or IP team. Only projects working towards spin-out may submit a proposal with no external partner, and the case should be made as to why a partnership is not appropriate. In such cases, there must be evidence of partnership or support from relevant organisations, e.g. customers or civic bodies, to provide adequate commercialisation support, as evidenced by a letter of support.
If existing university spinouts are the industry partner, the project must not be developing IP already licensed to the spinout.
