The Technology Strategy Board is pleased to announce that the first of the pilot competitions for the reformed SBRI programme is now open, with the Ministry of Defence (MoD).

The reformed SBRI is a procurement programme - Government Departments buy research and development services, helping to bring new technologies to market and leading to the possibility of future commercial procurement in the public sector. Developments will be 100% funded and will be targeted at specific identified needs in each Department, increasing the chance of exploitation. Suppliers for each project will be selected by an open competition process and retain the IPR generated from the project, with certain rights of use retained by the contracting Department.

The specific topics (both Phase 1 projects) for the MoD pilot competition are:

• Energising the Armed Forces (£300k). This includes: in-theatre energy generation and energy scavenging; extending the efficiency and deployability of alternative energy sources and energy storage; reducing energy consumption of devices, directly or indirectly; improving conventional fuel efficiency.


• Cut Costs not Ships – whole life cost reduction in the maritime sector (£400k). This includes: reducing facility dependence, particularly docks and dockyards; the ability to replace equipment by `plug and play'; reducing through life cost of fluid systems; better metal preservation; improved configuration control / inventory management via electronic remote sensing; system integration (commission, alignment, calibration) through tele-engineering.

The assessment date for both of these competitions is 30th September 2008. For more details of how the SBRI programme works, and on these specific competitions, see the SBRI page on the Technology Strategy Board website. Application is through the Centre for Defence Enterprise portal.

Further competitions, including a pilot with the Department of Health (DoH), will be announced via the Technology Strategy Board website in the coming months. Following early evaluation of the pilots with the MoD and the DoH, a full roll-out of the reformed SBRI programme to other Departments is anticipated in April 2009.

SBRI is aimed at businesses working on the development of an innovative process, material, device, product or service. Successful businesses will be those whose technology addresses specific needs identified in the competitions, and could make a measurable improvement to what is currently being procured by the target government department. SBRI projects are intended to achieve major milestones on the route to commercialisation, including prototyping and demonstration, and to be particularly helpful to early stage companies. General enquiries about the SBRI programme can be directed to sbri@tsb.gov.uk.