UK Research and Innovation (UKRI) will invest up to £2.5 million from the UKRI R&D MAP Breaking Down Barriers to Opportunity Mission in this Contracts for Innovation competition. This is subject to us receiving a sufficient number of high quality applications. The aim of this competition is to develop innovations that enable earlier, fairer, and more reliable identification of special educational needs (SEN) in contexts where existing market solutions underperform or do not operate. The competition has a UK-wide remit, with the Additional Learning Needs (ALN) and Additional Support Needs (ASN) terms used in Wales and Scotland being within the definition of "SEN" used in this brief. Projects should focus on developing, testing and rolling out innovations to enable the earlier identification of children and young people with SEN, and for strengths and needs assessment, that can be integrated into education settings. This is phase 1 of a potential 3 phase competition. The decision to proceed with phase 2 will depend on the outcomes from phase 1 and assessment of a separate application into a subsequent phase 2 competition. Only the successful applicants from phase 1 will be invited to apply to take part in phase 2. In applying to phase 1 of this competition you are entering into a competitive process. This competition has a funding budget of up to £2.5 million, so we may not be able to fund all the proposed projects. It may be the case that your project scores highly and receives positive comments from the assessors but we are still unable to fund it due to the portfolio approach we take. Any adoption and implementation of a solution from this competition would be subject to a separate, possibly competitive, procurement exercise. This competition does not cover the purchase of any solution. We expect to receive a high volume of applications and will not be able to fund them all. We expect to award a maximum of 12 contracts. We consider a range of factors when determining whether to provide funding to applicants. This includes an assessment of prior conduct, such as any outstanding payments owed to Innovate UK or UKRI. Such factors may influence the funding decision, potentially resulting in a refusal of funding or an award subject to additional scrutiny. We also reserve the right to adjust funding allocations for any of our competitions. This may be in response to changes in policy, portfolio funding considerations or broader government funding decisions. This competition closes at 11am UK time on the deadline stated in this Innovate UK competition brief . We cannot guarantee other government or third party sites will always show the correct competition information.
