Detailed Guideline
IICG Innovation Grant Program
The IICG Innovation Grant Program promotes product development partnerships between researchers and startups, business, industry organizations with that of IICG. Through the partnership IICG encourages the joint development of commercially relevant product development in Graphene and 2D materials. The project proposals are invited in following example application areas but not limited to:
Energy, packaging and storage applications
Power and/or Electronics applications
Composites and ceramics applications
Robotics, drones and aerospace applications
Sensor and 5G communication applications
Defense related applications
The grant opportunity supports projects which initiate or develop long term strategic innovation alliances to apply advanced knowledge to problems, acquire new knowledge and as a basis for securing commercial interest and other benefits of commercial oriented research outputs.
Objectives
The scheme objectives are to:
● support the development of long-term strategic research and innovation alliances between IICG, higher education organizations and industry and other research end-users, in order to apply advanced knowledge to problems;
● provide opportunities for competitive commercial research projects to industry for conducting collaboration with IICG;
● promote spin-outs from universities or research labs and encourage joint development of projects with IICG
● Co-develop products between IICG and industry
● enhance the scale and focus of research in IICG priority areas.
Commitment from Startup
The Partner Industry/Startup Organization must make a commitment of at least 20% of the total grant amount in cash and/or in kind to the project. Where the startups do not have an academic or industry partner, the startups will have an option to partner for co-development of product with IICG or its implementation partners. At least one of the chief investigator should be from a startup or industry.
TRL requirement
Important: The grant expects the proposals should have the end product planned to be at a minimum TRL level of 4. By the end of the project, the product needs attain a TRL 7 for completion.
Explanation
What are TRL Levels?
Additional Resources on Technology Readiness Levels:
· NASA, Technology Readiness Levels Demystified, 2010, URL: https://www.nasa.gov/topics/aeronautics/features/trl_demystified.html(link is external)
· Disruptive Innovation, Technology Readiness Level (TRL) - Innovation Management, 2016, Youtube Video URL: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=in4TnQZGYj4(link is external)
IP ownership
Two modes of IP ownership are possible under this grant.
(1) Co-develop a new idea or work on improving an existing product idea in collaboration with IICG, in which case the IP will be jointly owned by IICG and awardee.
(2) The awardee works on integrating the existing IP of IICG to their products, in which case the existing IP ownership will remain with IICG. In case of integrating IP in the awardees product, the IP is non-exclusive and can be licensed to other parties by IICG.
Project funding
The grant provides project funding of up to Rs 20 lakhs for a two year period.
Project funding may be used for:
● personnel, for example, research associates or assistants and technicians and stipends for higher degree by research students;
● access to research and infrastructure facilities and technical workshop services;
● essential field research;
● expert third party services of scientists from partner institutes;
● publication and dissemination of outputs and outreach;
● travel costs essential to the project;
● consumable
● web hosting and development;
● workshops, focus groups and conferences; and
● essential support costs for researchers who are carers or who themselves require care.
The funding does not support the purchase of equipment.
Eligibility criteria
· The applicant should have a product at TRL level 4 or above
· The involvement of a startup or industry is a mandatory condition.
· Support letter of a company or industry is mandatory for those applicants from academic or research labs who have joint appointments in startups and academia. At least one of the CI should be from a startup or industry.
· The product should include strong alignment with IICG demonstrated through the willingness to co-develop new IPs or be able to integrate existing IPs from IICG to the proposed products.
· The Partner Industry/Startup Organization must make a commitment of at least 20% of the total grant amount in cash and/or in kind to the project.
The assessment and selection process
All applications which meet the eligibility criteria will be assessed and merit ranked using all the assessment criteria.
Incomplete applications will be rejected.
The applications will be considered on merit, based on:
How well it meets the assessment criteria
How it is ranked against the other applications
Strength of commercial viability as judged by the panel.
All applications will be reviewed by a panel of experts and if suitable will be invited for presentation.
Final selection will be made based on the presentation.
Application Guideline
All applications must be submitted via the online submission form:
A part of the proposal following needs to be submitted:
Supporting letter from all partners
Complete the following sections
Project title (80 words)
Name of the start-up (if a registered company)
Name of the individual innovator (if not a startup)
Chief investigator biography (500 words)
Co-investigator biography (500 words)
List of team members and their roles
Project abstract (500 words)
Project impact statement (500 words)
Commercial feasibility (500 words)
Current TRL level
Benefit to India (500 words)
Innovation (500 words)
Details of any patents filed
Product demonstration (upload video/ photos of the prototype)
Supporting letters
Budget details (upto 20 lakhs)
Timeline with milestones and deliverables
Self-declaration stating that the proposal is not plagiarized and is submitted only for this call.
The grant will be open and accepting applications all year round.
Comments