Highways England SBRI competitions

Posted on: 07/02/2019

Highways England is investing up to £20 million to develop innovative ideas and solutions for UK roads.

Highways England are running two competitions being run through Small Business Research Initiative (SBRI).  The ideas put forward must change the way UK roads are designed, managed and used, and must not have already been demonstrated on the strategic road network in England.

Competition 1 is for projects where feasibility has been proven and is at development stage (mid to high Technology Readiness Level - TRL).  £12 million is available to further progress the research and development (R&D) and produce a prototype.

Competition 2 is a 2-phase competition for projects where feasibility has not yet been proven (low TRL).

  • Phase 1 ‚Äì technical feasibility.¬† Up to ¬£2 million is available in phase 1 for projects to develop feasibility studies. Projects will be awarded up to ¬£75, 000, including VAT, per project lasting up to 8 weeks.
  • Phase 2: prototype development and evaluation. This involves research and development (R&D) contracts being awarded to successful applicants eligible to apply from phase 1. ¬†Up to ¬£6 million is available for the whole phase with a view to producing a prototype. ¬†Projects will be awarded up to ¬£1 million including VAT.

The competitions will cover 6 themes:

  1. Design, construction and maintenance
  2. Connected and autonomous vehicles (CAVs)
  3. Customer mobility
  4. Energy and environment
  5. Operations
  6. Air quality

A webinar will be held on 14 February to outline the competitions.  To register for the webinar, click here.

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