Small Business Research Initiative
The public sector spends around £160 billion a year procuring goods and services. The procurement of innovative solutions has a key role to play in the competitiveness of business as well as the efficiency, cost effectiveness and improved delivery of public services.
In October 2007 the Sainsbury review "Race to the Top" recommended a change to the Government's Small Business Research Initiative (SBRI) to focus on technology and innovative development. The Technology Strategy Board, working with the Department for Innovation Universities and Skills (DIUS), has been asked to launch a reformed SBRI.
The Technology Strategy Board is exploiting its existing knowledge base and experience in working across business and government, to establish a programme by which government procurement of technology development will drive demand for innovation in early stage businesses in the UK.
What is it?
The reformed SBRI is a procurement programme - Government Departments buy research and development services, helping to bring new technologies to market and leading to the possibility of future commercial procurement in the public sector. Developments will be 100% funded and will be targeted at specific identified needs in each Department, increasing the chance of exploitation. Suppliers for each project will be selected by an open competition process and retain the IPR generated from the project, with certain rights of use retained by the contracting Department.
We are launching pilot competitions for the new SBRI. The pilots will operate in two phases. Phase 1 projects are to demonstrate technical feasibility; contracts are limited to a maximum of £100k and 6 months. After Phase 1 each project will be evaluated, and successful ones will be eligible to enter a competition for Phase 2, to develop and demonstrate the technology, including prototypes and trials in a realistic operational environment. Phase 2 contracts are limited to a maximum of £1m and 2 years. Successful completion of Phase 2 may lead to individual arrangements for commercialisation and product procurement (outside SBRI and according to Departments' needs).
Following early evaluation of the pilots - which we are running across two Government Departments (Ministry of Defence and Department of Health) in the second half of 2008 - we anticipate full roll-out of the reformed model to other Departments from April 2009.
Who is it for?
SBRI is aimed at businesses working on the development of an innovative process, material, device, product or service.
Successful businesses will be those whose technology addresses specific needs identified in the competitions, and could make a measurable improvement to what is currently being procured by the target government department. SBRI projects are intended to achieve major milestones on the route to commercialisation, including prototyping and demonstration, and to be particularly helpful to early stage companies.
Current competitions
The Health pilot is now open - closing date 24 November. The specific Defence pilots are now closed but further proposals for support from Defence can be considered by the Centre for Defence Enterprise. See the competitions page for details.
General enquiries about the SBRI programme can be directed to email sbri@tsb.gov.uk .