Opportunity Alert: Managing energy on marine vessels

Innovate UK and the Defence Science and Technology Laboratory (dstl) are to invest up to £7.5m in collaborative R&D projects to improve the ways in which energy is managed on ships and other marine and maritime vessels.

The focus of this competition is on the underlying technological challenges that will enable greater efficiencies in the production, management and use of energy.

We are not only seeking proposals from companies within the marine and maritime sector, but also those operating outside it. Companies should have expertise in aspects of electrical systems, energy management or performance monitoring.

Proposals must be collaborative and business-led, and we would like to see micro and small businesses involved. We expect to fund mainly industrial research projects in which a business partner will generally attract up to 50% public funding for their project costs (60% for SMEs).

We expect projects to range in size from total costs of £500k to £1.5m, although we may consider projects outside this range.

This is a two-stage competition that opens for applicants on 12 January 2015. The deadline for expressions of interest is at noon on 11 March 2015.