31/07/2012

£400,000 Competition Launched for Innovations in Energy and Infrastructure

'Design for Future Climate: Climate Resilient Infrastructure' is a new competition set up to fund the development of innovative solutions to increase the resilience of the UK's infrastructure to a changing future climate.

Defra estimates the adaptation and resilience to climate change is worth £2.1 billion to the UK economy and this is expected to grow by 7% between now and the year 2018.

Through the competition, Defra hopes to create business opportunities from climate change adaptation for UK companies, and anticipates that these adaptation ideas may have wider applicability outside the UK.

A total budget of £400,000 has been set aside for the competition; to be allocated over a two-year period. During the current round (round one), up to £200,000 is available to support the development of proposed actions, innovations and associated feasibility studies. Individual contracts for between £40,000 and £100,000 will be awarded.

The funds can be used towards the development of pioneering solutions to protect infrastructure, such as roads, airports, power stations, water treatment plants and Wi-Fi networks, against the threats of climate change. Proposals that can increase climate resilience innovations, both for potential future infrastructure projects and to retro-fit existing infrastructure assets, are welcome. Innovations which provide incremental adaptation options are also desirable.

Applications are invited from single companies, academia or from consortiums of interested parties. This includes engineers, scientists and designers operating within these sectors throughout the UK.

Speaking about the launch of the new competition, Environment Minister, Lord Taylor of Holbeach said:

"Roads, railways and our Wi-Fi networks are the building blocks of our economy and we need them to stand up to what climate change can throw at it. We have seen weeks of heavy rain and flooding across the country which we know is the sort of extreme weather we have to expect in future due to climate change.

"The competition that we are announcing today challenges our world class engineers and scientists to come up with innovative ways to protect the UK's infrastructure from any effects of changing climate."

The deadline for registrations is 29 August 2012. Following registrations, full competition entries must be submitted by noon on 6 September 2012.

Click here for more details (opens in new window).

Source: Defra and the Technology Strategy Board, 23/07/2012

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