Up to £2 Million in Funding for AI Upskilling Solutions in Key UK Sector

Innovate UK, part of UK Research and Innovation, will invest up to £2 million in innovation projects as part of the BridgeAI programme.

Aim

The aim of this competition is to develop responsible and ethical AI personalised learning solutions, to support AI competency development in the BridgeAI key sectors of:

• construction
• transport and logistics
• creative industries
• agriculture and food processing

Themes

• Your project must focus on:
  • developing AI competencies in at least one of the competition’s key sectors
  • one or more of the learner personas defined in the AI Skills for Business Competency Framework, including AI Workers, AI Professionals or AI Leaders
  • equality, diversity and inclusion in AI focussed personalised learning journeys.

Funding Information

• Up to £2 million has been allocated to fund innovation projects in this competition. Funding will be in the form of a grant.
• Your project’s total eligible grant funding request must be between £50,000 and £100,000.
• 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.
• Research, Development and Innovation Streamlined Subsidy Scheme; for Category 1 Feasibility studies, you can 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 organization.

Eligible Projects

• Your project must:
  • accelerate sector relevant AI competency development in a responsible and ethical manner
  • support high quality education through evidence based teaching and learning approaches
  • align proposed content with the relevant industry sector standards and the AI Skills for Business Competency Framework with a view to accreditation
  • identify proposed learning outcomes
  • support upskilling and reskilling of the existing workforce in this competition’s BridgeAI key sectors
  • identify an end user to pilot your solution.

Eligibility Criteria

• Your project must:
  • have a grant funding request of between £50,000 and £100,000
  • last between 6 and 10 months
  • carry out all of its project work in the UK
  • intend to exploit the results from or in the UK
  • start by 1 June 2025
  • end by 31 March 2026
• Projects must always start on the first of the month, even if this is a non-working day. You must not start your project until your Grant Offer Letter has been approved by Innovate UK. Any delays within Project Setup may mean they need to delay your project start date.
• To lead a project or work alone your organisation must:
  • be a UK registered business of any size
  • be or involve at least one UK registered micro, small or medium-sized enterprise (SME).
• 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 and completing their Project Impact questions in the application.
  • To be an eligible collaboration, the lead and at least one other organisation must apply for funding when entering their costs into the application.
• Non-funded partners: Your project can include partners that do not receive any of this competition’s funding. Their costs will count towards the total eligible project costs.
• Subcontractors:
  • Subcontractors are allowed in this competition, but they are limited to no more than 20% of the total project costs.
  • 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 cannot 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. They 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 eligible project costs.
• Number of applications:
  • A business can only lead on one application but can be included as a collaborator in two further applications.
  • If an organisation is not leading any application, it can collaborate in any number of applications.
• Sanctions:
  • This competition will not fund you, or provide any financial benefit to any individual or entities directly or indirectly involved with you, which would expose Innovate UK or any direct or indirect beneficiary of funding from Innovate UK to UK Sanctions.

For more information, visit GOV.UK.