UK registered organisations can apply for a share of up to £750,000 for innovative projects that can improve capabilities in monitoring UK marine assets with technologies that are ready to test in real-world conditions. Funding for the Improving Observation Capabilities of Biodiversity in UK Waters is provided by the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (DEFRA).
o Competition opened: Monday 24 July 2023.
o Competition closes: Wednesday 6 September 2023 at 11:00am.
The aim of this competition is to test innovative technologies and approaches as part of end-to-end marine monitoring systems from in-situ data collection through to generating insights from the data. The innovation must focus on measures of marine asset extent, condition, and human pressures. The outputs of the work must demonstrate how the data collected can be used to generate insights into ecosystem services flows from marine assets, or how these flows could be impacted by human pressures.
This is phase 2 of a two phase competition.
The first phase competition was for the development of key technologies and capabilities that can be used for more effective and efficient observation of biodiversity in natural capital assets.
This phase 2 competition is for the development of complete end-to-end marine monitoring systems and their verification and validation. These must include on-site testing in an operational environment, or data curation, validation, analysis or visualisation.
Each project’s total grant funding request must be no more than £250,000.
Further information is available on the GOV.UK website.
