This document provides information about the Modernising Energy Data Applications (MEDApps) competition from Innovate UK. The competition will fund up to 6 projects in Phase 1 for 3 months up to £150,000 each to develop energy data applications. Phase 2 will fund up to 3 of the successful Phase 1 projects for 9 months up to £417,000 each to further develop the applications. The competition aims to integrate energy data with other sectors using advanced techniques to solve real-world energy issues in the UK and take approaches that are open, inclusive, and have routes to commercialization.

1. Modernising Energy Data Applications
phase 1
Applicant briefing
Date: 22nd September 2020

2. 1 Welcome and introductions
2 Part 1
Scope, eligibility criteria
3 Part 2
The Innovation Funding Service, application finances,
academic partners
4 Part 3
Submitting your application, assessment, project setup for
successful applicants
Agenda

3. Eligibility criteria

4. Resubmission Not a resubmission
A resubmission is:
an application Innovate UK judges as not materially
different from one you've submitted before (but it can
be updated based on the assessors' feedback)
A brand new application/project/idea that you have
not previously submitted into an Innovate UK
competition
OR
A previously unsuccessful or ineligible application:
ü has been updated based on assessor feedback
ü and is materially different from the application
submitted before
ü and fits with the scope of this competition
Resubmissions
This competition does allow resubmissions.

5. Project eligibility
ü An organisation of any size can apply
ü You can work alone or with other organisation
ü Single applicants only – Sub-contractors are allowed
ü You must carry out your project in the UK
ü Exploit the results in the UK
Project cost Up to £150,000
Project length Up to 3 months
Eligibility criteria

6. Other Innovate UK projects
• If you have an outstanding final claim and/or Independent Accountant Report (IAR) on a live
Innovate UK project, you will not be eligible to apply for grant funding in this competition, as a lead
or a partner organisation.
• If you applied to a previous competition as the lead or sole company and were awarded funding by
Innovate UK, but did not make a substantial effort to exploit that award, we will award no more
funding to you.

7. Timeline Dates
Competition Opens 12th October 2020
Briefing Event 22nd September 2020
Submission Deadline 18th November 2020
Interviews 11th – 13th January 2021
Applicants informed 22nd January 2021
Key Dates

8. Innovation Funding
Service (IFS)

9. Search for a funding competition and
review criteria

10. Applicant: create an account
To create your account:
UK based businesses - Use Companies House
lookup as it speeds up our checks by providing your
company number and your are unable to enter it at a
later date
Research organisations, academics &
Universities - Enter your information manually so
you’re not listed as a business on IFS and ensure you
receive the correct funding

11. Project Details
• Application Team
- Contributors: Invite colleagues from your own organisation to help you complete your application
• Application Details
- Title, Timescales & Resubmission
• Project Summary
- Short summary and objectives of the project including what is innovative about it
• Public Description
- Description of your project which will be published if you are successful
• Scope - How does your project align with the scope of this competition?
- If your project is not in scope, it will be ineligible for funding

12. Application form
Question 1 The opportunity
Question 2 The users
Question 3 Approach
Question 4 Capabilities
Question 5 Technical demonstration
Question 6 Route to market
Question 7 Measuring impact
Question 8 Risks and issues
Question 9 Assurance
Question 10 Costs and team
Appendix Q3
Appendix Q8
Appendix Q5
Application Questions
Detailed Guidance
Available on IFS

13. Application finances

14. To claim funding:
Your business does not have to be UK registered with Companies House when you apply but it must be
registered before you can receive funding.
You are unable to claim funding if:
• You are an overseas organisation so your company number begins with FC
• You organisation is setup as a branch so your company number begins with BR
• Your company is based in Jersey so your company number begins with JE

15. Ineligible:
• Dividends
• Bonuses
• Non productive time
Eligible:
• Staff working directly on
project
• Paid by PAYE
• NI, pension, non-
discretionary costs
Labour

16. Overheads
Innovate UK’s definition: additional costs and
operational expenses incurred directly as a result of
the project. These could include additional costs for
administrative staff, general IT, rent and utilities
Indirect (administration) overheads
• please ensure they are additional and
directly attributable to the delivery of the
project
Direct overheads
• E.g. office utilities, IT infrastructure, laptop
provision not covered by capital usage
• must be directly attributable to the project
• Provide detailed breakdown together with
methodology/basis of apportionment

17. Material costs
Please be clear on what the
materials are, just putting
consumables doesn’t provide
enough detail and we will
request more information
should you be successful

18. Capital equipment usage
Eligible:
• Used in the project or shared with
day-to-day production
Calculations will need to be in line with your
accounting practices.
Even if the equipment is depreciated fully over the
life of the project this must be added under capital
equipment.

19. Subcontractors
Eligible:
• Justified and quantified
• If using non-UK sub-contractors
are being used you will need to
provide strong justification on why
an UK-based sub-contractor is not
being used
• If you’re sub-contracting to a
parent or sister company, please
ensure you list at cost and do not
include profit.

20. Travel & subsistence
Eligible:
Costs must be directly linked to the
project
Please breakdown your costs as
follows:
• Travel
• Accommodation
• Subsistence
If you have an annual trip to visit
the parent company this is not an
eligible cost

21. Other costs
Eligible:
• Costs that could not be added under
previous headings.
• Do not double count
• Patent filing costs for new IP – SMEs
up to £7,500

22. Submitting your
application

23. Project cost summary
All organisations can see a
summary of project costs
Ensure the highlighted costs
fits the criteria for this
competition state total project
costs criteria

24. Editing a submitted application
Reopen by
clicking here
Remember to
press SUBMIT

25. Submit your application early!
Be aware of the
potential for last
minute technical
issues!

26. Assessment

27. Application assessment
All applications are assessed by independent assessors drawn from industry and academia
What do they look for?
• Clear and concise answers
• The right amount of information
• not too much detail
• no assumptions
• Quantification and justification
• A proposal that presents a viable opportunity for growth, a level of innovation that
necessitates public sector investment and has the right team and approach to be successful
Keep your assessors engaged
and interested in your proposal.
You want them to be fascinated
and excited by your idea!

28. Note on feedback
• The feedback is compiled using the written comments of the independent assessors who review
and assess the applications.
• It is intended to be constructive in nature and to highlight both the strong as well as the weak
areas of your application.
• Please bear in mind that because applications are assessed by a number of assessors, you may
receive information which appears to be conflicting. This may reflect their different interpretations
of the proposal that you submitted.
• It must also be noted that some proposals may appear to have been favourably assessed based
on their comments, in such instances it could be that your proposal simply fell below the funding
threshold, with others achieving a higher merit score overall.

29. Scoring
We review scores and feedback to check assessors are adhering to our guidelines and scoring fairly.
In some cases, where we feel a score is unjust and not supported by feedback, we may remove that
score as an outlier and update the total score for the application.
Please be aware that both low and high outliers may be removed and as a result scores may increase
or decrease.
If outliers are removed we are unable to reflect this change in the scores you receive as part of
your feedback due to this decision being completed outside the system

30. Application assessment
• The score spread shows the difference between the
top and bottom scores
• If score spread is 30 or more we will look to see if an
outlier is apparent
• If there is a 3 or more appear in either the two
columns Count of No Scope or Count of No Recc’d
we review the applications feedback and if justified,
the application will not be eligible for funding.

31. • The green box = particular assessors scores on an application
• The purple box = set of scores for a particular question
• The red box = at first glance this looks like an outlier
Identifying outliers

32. Assessor feedback

33. Interviews
If you are invited to progress to interview:
• You can bring up to five people to attend the interview
• You will have 10 minutes to present/provide a show and tell presentation
• There is a 20 minute Q&A session lead by members of the panel
• You will have an opportunity to respond to the assessor feedback so the panel can read it prior to
interview
• The response to feedback, presentations and presenters’ names have to be provided ahead of the
interview

34. Project setup for
successful applicants

35. IFS for successful applicants
Project Set up: 8 steps to complete
• Applicable to all grant claiming partners
• Must be completed within 30 days - projects
must start within 90 days or funding may be
withdrawn
• Confirmation of your bank account is required to
ensure we are paying the correct organisation
you may/will be asked to provide a redacted
bank statement to confirm this
• Project change requests cannot be submitted
before the project starts

36. Project set up
All grant claiming project partners will be required to complete project set up. To avoid delays you
should consider:
• Who will be the project manager?
• Who will be the finance contact for each consortium member?
• How will your consortium be set up? (if applicable)

37. Grant claims and payments
• All grants are claimable quarterly in arrears
• Claims can only be made for costs incurred and paid between the project start and end dates
• Claims may be subject to an independent audit (including all academic partners) according to grant size
• Claims are only paid once quarterly reporting and necessary audits are complete
• Projects over 6 months are monitored on a quarterly basis including a visit from the appointed
Monitoring Officer. Anything outside of this will be discussed on a case by case basis.
• The monitoring will be carried out against a detailed project plan and financial forecast

38. Customer Support Services:
0300 321 4357 (Mon-Fri, 9am-5:30pm)
support@innovateuk.ukri.org
Knowledge Transfer Network:
www.ktn-uk.co.uk
Innovate UK:
https://www.gov.uk/government/organisations/innovate-uk
Q&A

39. @InnovateUK Innovate UKInnovate UK

40. UK Research
and Innovation
Future energy model proving
£51m £22m
Prospering from the Energy Revolution:
Committing >£100m in public funding
Innovation Accelerator
Research, Expertise, Capability, Coordination
£16m
Practical demonstrators Future designs
FastStartProjects
ModernisingEnergyData
Access(MEDA)
£11m
Key-technologycomponents
ERIS EnergyREV ModernisingEnergyData
Applications (MEDApps)

41. UK Research
and Innovation
Innovation Accelerator: Data strand
MODERNISING ENERGY DATA
ACCESS (MEDA)
£1.9M
WINNING PROJECTS
CURRENTLY IN ALPHA
MODERNISING ENERGY DATA
APPLICATIONS (MEDAPPS)
£2M
COMPETITION LAUNCHING TODAY

42. UK Research
and Innovation
Modernising Energy Data Applications
Competition Scope

43. UK Research
and Innovation
Phase 2
• 9 month projects
• Beta phase projects
• July 2021 to April 2021
• £1,250,000 total phase 2 budget
• Up to £417,000 available per
project
• Up to 3 projects funded
MEDApps: competition outline
Phase 1
• 3 month projects
• Discovery and Alpha phases
• March to June 2021
• £750,000 total phase 1 budget
• Up to £150,000 available per
project
• Up to 6 projects funded
*Only applicants successful in phase
1 will be eligible to apply for phase 2

44. UK Research
and Innovation
MEDApps: Phase 1 requirements
• Applications are invited from single, lead organisations
• The lead applicant can subcontract specialist skills and expertise
from other organisations
• Projects must participate in a public show and tell at the end of the
Discovery and Alpha phases

45. UK Research
and Innovation
Data from the energy sector must
be integrated with data sources
from at least one other sector.
Applications which address a
cross sectoral approach, or
solve issues relevant to net-
zero in other sectors are
welcomed and encouraged.

46. UK Research
and Innovation
Use state of the art computer
science, statistical mathematics,
and other digital techniques.

47. UK Research
and Innovation
An excellent
focus on design
Human-centred design
Implementation of design principles
Use of collaborative working tools
User experience testing
Iterative development
Engaging with users throughout

48. UK Research
and Innovation
Take an open, diverse
and inclusive approach
How will you consider and design for accessibility
requirements?
How will you mitigate your own unconscious
biases?
How will you engage disadvantaged and
disengaged groups of society?
How will you encourage diversity of thought
constantly in the way you work?
How will you test that your solution promotes
greater equality of outcomes?

49. UK Research
and Innovation
Projects must…
Solve real world issues in
local energy systems of the
UK
Focus on building a credible
business case with routes to
commercialisation

50. UK Research
and Innovation
Projects must champion…
• Open source approaches
• Presumed open data that can be
easily integrated with other
datasets
• Progress towards fulfilling the
recommendations of the Energy
Data Taskforce

51. UK Research
and Innovation
Good Luck!
Contact: energydata@innovateuk.ukri.org
David Richardson
Innovation Lead for Energy Systems
@david_ab_rich