Commercialising Quantum Technologies: feasibility studies round 2

The aim of the competition is to advance the commercialisation of quantum technologies in the UK. This funding is from ISCF.

This advance is achieved through the investment of up to £7 million in innovation projects which address one or more of the following technical challenges:

• connectivity
• situational awareness
• computing

Your proposal must identify a clear market opportunity and an innovative project which exploits it.

Your project must:

• exploit second generation quantum techniques
• demonstrate how the technology will contribute towards the commercialisation of quantum technologies in or from the UK
• outline the investment from industry that you will generate

Applications can be single or collaborative and must be led by a business. All applications must include a micro, small or medium sized enterprise (SME).

Your project must:

• have total eligible costs up to £500,000 for feasibility studies
• have total eligible costs up to £50,000 for market research projects
• start by 1 February 2022
• end by 31 July 2023
• last from 12 to 18 months

Projects can be single or collaborative but must involve a micro, small or medium sized enterprise (SME), either as the lead or a partner.

To lead a project or work alone your organisation must:

• be a UK registered business of any size
• involve an SME
• carry out its project work in the UK
• intend to exploit the results from or in the UK

You can collaborate with other UK registered businesses, research organisations, public sector organisations or charities.

Academic institutions cannot lead or work alone.

To collaborate with the lead, your organisation must:

• be a UK registered business, academic institution, charity, not-for-profit, public sector organisation or research and technology organisation (RTO)
• carry out its project work in the UK
• intend to exploit the results from or in the UK

The project must:

• study a commercial opportunity
• quantify performance objectives
• provide a roadmap of future exploitation
• exploit second generation quantum techniques

Second generation quantum technologies are defined as those involving the generation and coherent control of quantum states, resulting in phenomena such as superposition or entanglement. We consider technologies involving single photon generation and quantum computing to be in scope.

You must describe how you will collect project metrics, including:

• investment in addition to the project partner matched funding
• additional capital investment aligned to or dependent on the project outcomes

Your project must address at least one of the following:

1. Connectivity: techniques for securing data in storage and in flight.
2. Situational Awareness: Autonomous systems. Sensors and detectors for the built environment, transport and infrastructure. Imaging and sensing “seeing things currently invisible”.
3. Computing: Transformational computers for solving currently intractable problems.

We want to fund a portfolio of projects, across a variety of technologies, markets, technological maturities and research categories.

We will consider funding market research proposals to explore a unique commercial opportunity in quantum technologies.

Your project can focus on one or more of the following:

• involve consortia which span the supply chain of component suppliers, system integrators, and end user businesses
• focus on maximising UK return from the quantum technology research undertaken by the UK academic base
• bring significant new investment and businesses into the UK’s growing quantum technologies sector
• develop the quantum computing industry sector (hardware, components, simulators, algorithms and software) in the UK

A briefing webinar was held on 18th January: watch the recording here.