Eligible Activities
- Opportunity Analysis to support your ideas in the Idea Screening Phase
- Idea Screening
- Concept development, prototyping and testing
- Development the marketing and engineering details
- Identification & investigation of intellectual property, including the process for intellectual property creation, protection (but not patent maintenance fees to Intellectual Property Office or relevant official organisations)
- Feasibility through virtual computer aided rendering and rapid prototyping
- Conducting focus group customer interviews
- Commercialization (often considered post-NPD)
- Critical path analysis
- New Product Pricing
- Impact of new product on the entire product portfolio
- Analysis of competition and alternative competitive technologies
- Analysis of costs and selling price
- Forecast of unit volumes, revenue, and profit
- Equipment purchases to develop prototypes
- Capital items to develop physical prototypes
- Beta Testing and Market Testing
- Producing a physical prototype or mock-up
- Testing the product (and its packaging) in typical usage situations
- Producing an initial run of the product
- Economic impact assessment
- Launch new products or services
- Beta Testing and Market Testing
- Conducting focus group customer interviews
- New Product Pricing
- Producing a physical prototype or mock-up
- Testing the product (and its packaging) in typical usage situation
- Opportunity Analysis to support your ideas in the Idea Screening Phase
- Idea Screening
- Concept development/Concept testing
- Critical path analysis
- Analysis of competition and alternative competitive technologies
- Analysis of costs and selling price
- Forecast of unit volumes, revenue, and profit
- Efficiency audit, process change
- Off the shelf market research reports
- Customised market research done through professional consultants & market research
- Overseas market entry research reports done by specialist Accredited organisations / trade & industry bodies in the UK & overseas
- Development of innovative business models/ strategy
- Engineering operations planning
- Program review and monitoring
- Contingencies – what-if planning
- Innovation/technology audit
- Finalising Quality Management System
- Department scheduling
- Supplier collaboration
- Logistics plan
- Resource planning/publication
- Resource estimation
- Consultancy towards IT Strategy and Value Optimisation
- Building security algorithms & AI
- Specialist electronic system, Software design and computer engineering tools
- Designing of Specialist CRM systems that drive hardware
- APP design & development for Mobile & portable devices (such as tablets, phones and PDAs)
- Development of GIS (Geographical Information Systems)
- Analysis and Design of Algorithms
- Electronic Communication and Concurrency
- Compression Methods for Multimedia
- Cryptography and Information Security
- System Modelling
- Distributed Systems and Applications
- Software Measurement and Quality Assurance
- Informatics (including Bioinformatics) e.g. Software & hardware design of fingerprint or IRIS or Biometric Identification
- Scanners etc. that can be controlled through web technologies
Ineligible Activities
- Website Design
- Website Coding (exclusions apply – contact team for details)
- Launch marketing for products not developed in-house
- Traditional Marketing
- Leaflets
- Banners
- Video production
- Cold Calling
- Radio, TV, online adverts etc.
- Google / Keyword AdWords
- Social Media Marketing (Inc. promoted posts)
- Postage
- Items purchased to send as samples (Inc. as part of a marketing campaign)
We allow product launch marketing for under very specific conditions. The marketing must be specifically for the launch of a new, as yet unreleased, product, which is not and has not ever been available for purchase a the time of your Innovation Vouchers application.
- Accommodation
- Car parking
- Company vehicles
- Courier services
- Flights
- Food and drink
- Mileage
- Petrol, diesel or other fuel
- Refreshments
- Travel abroad
- For use as working capital
- Shipping / Freight
- Capital items NOT for use in developing a physical prototype (Inc. laptops, tablets, & other hardware)
- Stock (excluding specific initial product runs)
- Bank or credit card fees, Inc. those associated with an approved Innovation Vouchers project
- Development of non-bespoke software
- Purchase of non-bespoke software
- Installation of generic hardware/software
- Telesales, Adverts / Marketing
- Forwarding of post for a change of address as part of relocation
- Ink/toner cartridges or printer ink
- Internal employee wages/time
- Monthly bills/annual charges (Inc. telephone, internet, utilities, servicing of equipment, etc)
- Newspapers/journals
- Printing Costs (Inc. printing of current promotional material)
- Postage Costs (Inc. postage of current promotional material)
- Service/maintenance charges on office equipment
- Stock items
- Subscriptions to magazines, etc
- Time as in-kind contribution
- Conversion of a building into offices for rental purposes
- Building a new building or extension, etc
- Demolition
- External costs (ie landscape gardening, driveways, exterior furniture)
- Planning permission/building regulation fees
- Rent & rates for current or new premises
- Rent deposit on new premises
- Roofing
- Service charges
- Solar Panels
- Accountancy fees
- Accreditation fees
- Bank or payments system fees (Inc. fees associated with paying your chosen supplier)
- Coaching and mentoring
- Consultancy fees relating to completing the Innovation Vouchers application form
- Fees associated with registering a trademark
- Legal fees (Unless as part of approved project activity)
- Membership fees of professional organisations
- Recruitment
- Salaries
- Training
- Writing of a generic business plan, generic marketing strategy, etc.
- Purchase of ‘off-the-shelf’ or white labelled software
- Development of software not deemed to be ‘innovative’
Please note: this list is not exhaustive and may be subject to amendments.
