Assessment process and criteria

This guidance explains our competition process and how your proposal is assessed. At UKDI , we have a very thorough process for deciding which proposals to fund. The below guidance sets out our full competition process including the guidance given to our assessors to assess proposals. Competition process The competition process is made up of 10 stages. 1. Competition opens All competitions are launched on our UKDI Competition Services page. Sign up to the UKDI Mailing List Be the first to hear about new competitions, upcoming events and other UKDI news. To join the UKDI Mailing List, please complete the short sign up form here 2. Proposal submission The only way to submit a proposal to UKDI is online via the UKDI online submission service. Log in or register for an account . Some tips to help with your submission: before submitting your proposal, check the terms and conditions carefully to ensure that you agree with all of them. You may wish to check them with your commercial or legal department. Please read the Open Call terms and conditions here . The terms and conditions for a themed competition can be found within the competition document. draft your proposal offline to avoid losing material when submitting online be concise. Each assessor should be able to read, understand and assess your proposal within 1 hour and 30 minutes, unless otherwise stated in the competition document. Use the text boxes provided in the application form and look out for the word limits attachments are limited to .png, .jpg, or.jpeg files only. Please provide full answers on the (Desirable/Feasible/Viable) criteria for your Innovation in the boxes provided. Proposals received with Desirable/Feasible/Viable answers provided as attachments will be considered non-compliant and sifted out of the competition. only click submit when your proposal is complete. It is not possible to add any additional information to your proposal after it has been submitted innovators are strongly advised to submit their proposal at least one hour before the deadline stated on the competition document. Proposals submitted close to the deadline risk encountering issues that cannot be resolved in time. Responsibility for timely submission rests entirely with the innovator, no extensions will be made. 3. Competition close 4. Pre sift Once you have submitted your proposal, it will pass through an initial pre-sift process. At this stage, your proposal may be rejected if it: does not demonstrate impact for defence or security does not outline how it meets the scope of the competition is incomplete if the attachments have been used for additional text data over the stated word counts in Desirability, Feasibility, Viability and Additional Information is lacking technical information to allow technical assessment to take place does not demonstrate how the project can be completed in the timelines exceeds the funding limit or timescale stipulated does not demonstrate acceptance of or comply with UKDI terms and conditions is not at the correct Technology Readiness Level ( TRL ) for the competition is a resubmission of a previous proposal and does not adhere to the resubmission guidelines Further guidance on pre sift criteria is described in the online submission service for the specific competition and in the relevant competition document, accessible via the UKDI Competition Services page. 5. Assessment After the initial sifting process, experts from across UK government will be assigned to assess your proposal. When people outside of UK Government are used for assessment, it will be under a non-disclosure agreement and details will be provided in advance in the relevant competition document. During the assessment phase all proposals are assessed against the following criteria: desirable: strategic fit, end user support/pull (letters of support not required) feasible: technical credibility, innovation, risk, expertise of team/capability viable: costs and value for money, project delivery/plan Further guidance on assessment criteria is listed below . 6. Moderation After assessment, a moderator will compile an overview, pulling together comments to provide a collective outcome in the form of a ‘Fund’ or ‘No Fund’ recommendation against the proposal. 7. Challenge Stakeholders/moderators are invited to challenge the ‘Fund’ or ‘No Fund recommendation made against each proposal. Challengers present their argument both in written form for circulation and at the decision conference. 8. Decision conference The decision conference brings key stakeholders together to review proposal recommendations in line with competition delivery, including challenged recommendations. The moderator comments are presented and any challenges reviewed. At the conclusion of the conference, a final decision is made on whether each proposal will be funded. Innovators are not permitted to attend. 9. Decision release You’ll be able to track the progress of your application on your dashboard. You’ll be notified by email when we’ve made a decision on whether or not to fund your proposal. If you are successful, our commercial team will be in touch shortly after the decision date to begin contracting. Once you are on contract, both UKDI staff and a Technical Partner will support and advise you throughout the period of your project. 10. Feedback release If you are unsuccessful, you will receive brief written feedback within a few weeks of the applicable decision date. Feedback will be made available to you via email. Feedback is prepared by the proposal moderator, and is based on comments from all assessors and discussions at the decision conference. The feedback will give the main reasons why your proposal was unsuccessful. Please note that every UKDI competition has a finite financial limit which affects the number of bids we can fund. Where a proposal meets the fundable requirements for a competition, but is not funded, UKDI will continue to seek funding and shall consider your proposal fundable for 12 months from the date of the feedback release. We will share the abstract, Proposal Value Proposition Statement (PVPS) and title of your proposal with partners across His Majesty’s Government that may express an interest in funding the proposal through UKDI , in accordance with the competition document. We may also share this information on our cross-government Ideas Marketplace platform to foster collaboration and attempt to elicit funding. If partners across His Majesty’s Government wish to read the full proposal to decide if they will fund it, we will share the full proposal with them without seeking your permission if it is within 60 days of the feedback release date. If it is over 60 days since the feedback release date we will seek your permission before sharing the full proposal with them. For other potential funders, we will seek your permission before sharing the full proposal regardless of the number of days since the feedback release date. In the event that additional funding becomes available, UKDI may ask whether you would still be prepared to undertake the work outlined in your proposal under the same terms. Your official UKDI feedback will indicate if your proposal was deemed fundable, but not awarded funding at the time. Assessment criteria UKDI uses three baseline assessment criteria; desirable, feasible and viable. The baseline criteria apply to all our competitions, unless stated in the competition document. It is important to note that criteria may be adjusted across competitions in accordance with the needs of Government customers, any criteria changes will be clearly detailed within the competition document. You should check the specific guidance that is provided within the competition document on the UKDI Competition Services page. Once the criteria have been published for a particular competition, they will remain frozen for the duration of that competition. Corresponding guidance on what we need to see in the variou

Deadline

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Open date

08 Dec 2016

Funding

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TRL

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Eligible entities

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Eligible countries

GB

Topics

Assessment process and criteria