The Technology Strategy Board will invest up to £7m to fund collaborative R&D projects that will mobilise the talents and inspiration of information and communication technology (ICT) companies to develop new approaches for key challenges in manufacturing and construction. These challenges lie around:

• deriving and reusing knowledge 
• interoperability across supply chains 
• engaging users in design and operation processes 
• accelerating product and process innovation.

This competition focuses on the software components of ICT and the alignment of ICT systems with people and processes. The project innovation must be in the software and process change elements to be in scope.

The competition opens on 6 June 2011 with successful projects generally attracting from £100k to £1.5m of public funding. Projects can last no more than 24 months. Academic organisations may share up to 30% of the total grant for a project.