Scotland CAN DO Green Heat Retrofit Innovation Challenge - now closed
This challenge is now closed. It helped public sector social housing providers get funding to find and develop solutions to improve their clean energy retrofit programmes.
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About the challenge
The CAN DO Green Heat Retrofit Innovation Challenge supports public sector social housing providers to find and test solutions that could improve their social housing retrofit programmes.
The solutions may reduce the cost and/or time required to retrofit social housing, and/or improve the quality of the retrofit solution for the social housing providers and their tenants.
The retrofit challenge programme is flexible. It can help social housing providers find and evaluate retrofit solutions for the house as a whole, or focus on particular systems or components where there is scope to improve on what current suppliers are providing.
For example, you may want to:
- Address challenges related to the external insulation system and its installation
- Explore improved low carbon heating systems or storage solutions
- Look at how to apply low carbon heating systems to multi occupancy dwellings or at street level
The Green Heat Retrofit Innovation Challenge is the latest innovation challenge developed and managed by Scottish Enterprise and funded by the Scottish Government. This challenge is delivered as part of the Green Heat Innovation Support Programme, which supports local authorities and registered social landlords to decarbonise heat in their social housing stock.
The challenge uses social housing requirements to encourage innovation that will support the Scottish Government’s net zero, social housing and economic development policies.
Background
The CAN DO Innovation Challenge is a national support process that helps Scottish public sector organisations find innovative solutions to challenges in their operational service and policy delivery.
The challenge process allows the public sector to identify and work with innovative organisations and provides support to develop, test and access new, creative solutions to the problems they face.
Organisations can receive up to 100% funding to seek out and develop the most innovative solutions from the marketplace.
The challenge aims to:
- Find solutions for service delivery issues faced by the public sector
- Improve public services
- Boost Scotland’s economic development
Benefits for challenge sponsors include:
- The opportunity to explore creative solutions to operational challenges
- Up to 100% funding to find and develop innovative solutions
- Improved service delivery and quality through tailored solutions
- Support from the fund team to build your internal capability and processes to run future innovation challenges
Is my organisation eligible?
Only Scottish local authorities and registered social landlords can apply for funding as sponsors in the Green Heat Retrofit Innovation Challenge.
Businesses are not eligible to sponsor challenges, only to respond to them.
Is my challenge eligible?
Your challenge is eligible if:
- It requires some degree of solution development and validation to solve it – that is, there isn’t a validated solution already available on the market
- Other organisations besides yours will benefit from solving the challenge
- Your organisation will buy the solution or work with others to procure it if the challenge is solved
How the challenge process works
Challenge sponsors will receive funding to procure research and development (R&D) service contracts from companies to support the development and validation of innovative solutions to your challenge.
The challenge supports the use of Pre-Commercial Procurement (PCP) – for example, through the UK government’s well-established Small Business Research Initiative (SBRI) processes. In the PCP approach, public procurers buy R&D from several competing suppliers simultaneously. This allows them to compare alternative solutions and identify which offer the best value for money.
Other procurement approaches can be used – you can discuss this with the Scottish Enterprise challenge team.
Challenge phases
This challenge is split into two phases:
Phase 1 – Alternative solution evaluation
You’ll receive contracts to explore up to three solutions to your challenge with the companies that proposed them. Each company will receive up to £50,000 to evaluate their proposed approach. The exercise should be completed within three months.
Total funding available for phase 1 – up to £150,000
Phase 2 – Preferred solution validation
If you wish to proceed to phase 2, you’ll need to select your preferred solution and submit a separate funding application. If successful, you’ll be awarded up to £200,000 to work with the preferred company to test their solution within your retrofit programme.
This phase will validate the operational performance of the solution and enable you to make a business case for its wider adoption. This phase should be completed within a maximum of 12 months.
Total funding available for phase 2 – up to £200,000
Eligible costs
The funding can be used for:
- R&D service contracts for the winning bidders
- Costs of external experts or assessors
The funding cannot be used for:
- Internal staff costs
- Staff travel and subsistence
Funding details and responsibilities
Phase 1
Scottish Enterprise will contract with the successful sponsor organisations. We’ll contribute funding to support the costs of procuring contracts to evaluate and validate solutions from the supply chain.
You will receive 100% funding, up to a maximum of £150,000 for phase 1 projects. In your application, you should indicate any additional funds your organisation could contribute above this threshold.
Phase 2
The sponsor will lead and run the procurement process, contracting with the companies that were successful in phase 1. The Scottish Enterprise challenge team and Scottish Government procurement experts will be on hand to support you in this process, if required.
It will also be your responsibility to arrange a dedicated project management resource and any other resources required to deliver the project. The Scottish Enterprise challenge team will advise winning local authorities or registered social landlords throughout the process.
How will applications be assessed?
Your application will be assessed by Scottish Enterprise and evaluated based on the following criteria:
We’ll be looking for evidence of previous efforts to identify a solution, and that there are no solutions currently on the marketplace. This will be considered in terms of the outcomes you’re aiming for, rather than defining a specific technical solution.
We’ll look for evidence that your organisation has identified suitable skills, capabilities and experience to deliver the project (including procurement resources) and considered what match funding you may be able to offer.
We’ll consider the extent to which solving the challenge will benefit your organisation's ability to deliver improved services or policy for citizens or service users. It could also mean you can deliver the same level of services or implement policy more efficiently.
We’ll examine whether the sponsor has the power, commitment, and financial resources to procure a successful solution and/or influence decision makers in the buying process, and whether you’ve described a convincing plan to do this.
The score will be affected if there are any barriers to making this happen – for example, if there are lengthy timescales due to regulatory approvals of new products, or the need to interact with legacy IT systems.
We’ll consider the scale of any additional customers and/or markets that could open to the challenge solver after they have successfully demonstrated the solution with the sponsor. This will depend on how many others in the public and private sectors face the same challenge as the sponsor.
The scores awarded will relate to the size of the potential market for solutions.
We’ll assess the extent and strength of the Scottish supply chain capable of responding to this challenge.
| Criteria | Total available points |
| Potential level of innovation | 20 |
| Quality of challenge and delivery plan/ability to deliver | 20 |
|
Potential benefit to public sector and citizens
|
15 15 |
|
Potential benefit to Scottish economy
|
15 15 |
| Total | 100 |
Funding panel and final decisions
Following the evaluation process, shortlisted applications will be invited to a funding panel, where they will present their proposed challenge and discuss its details. This is an informal session to allow sponsors to meet the challenge team and clarify any outstanding issues from the application process.
Find out more
If you'd like to learn more about the funding challenge, watch this recording of our recent webinar for more details.
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