The Made Smarter Innovation programme has launched £20 million collaborative research and development competition focussed on sustainable smart factories.
Consortia of UK-registered business and organisations can apply for a share of up to £20m for digital innovation projects designed to reduce the carbon emissions of manufacturing processes. The aim of the competition is to support the development of digital innovations to improve the sustainability of manufacturing processes, resulting in lower material or energy consumption.
The Made Smarter programme is seeking applications from consortia with a mix of manufacturing and technology development capabilities that are working on innovative developments or novel applications of digital technologies. The projects can range in value from £1 million to £8 million, can run for up to two years, and can tackle themes ranging from reducing in-process material losses, to better sequencing of manufacturing operations to cut energy consumption.
The funding call is split into two strands – digital innovation with manufacturing data and in manufacturing processes – with a common aim: accelerating digital innovation to cut CO2 emissions from the manufacturing sector.