The Export Control Joint Unit (ECJU) has issued a number of notices to exporters in the last 2 weeks on sanctions against Russia and the impact on strategic export licences.

You are invited to attend a webinar on 23/03/2022 from 2pm – 3.30pm to hear more about the breadth of UK sanctions and financial sanctions:

Date: 24 March 2022

Time: 2pm to 3:30pm

Webinar: MS Teams

You will hear on these topics from the following government departments:

  • scope of the sanctions – Foreign Commonwealth and Development Office, Sanctions Task Force
  • scope and application of trade sanctions – ECJU
  • financial Sanctions: restrictions and general licences – HM Treasury Office of Financial Sanctions Implementation (OFSI)
  • Export Support Service Ukraine / Russia – Department for International Trade
  • enforcement of trade sanctions – HM Revenue and Customs

There will be an opportunity to ask questions at the event. We also welcome your questions beforehand so we can address as many issues as possible within the time.

Register to attend here. 

The Department for International Trade secures UK and global prosperity by promoting and financing international trade and investment, and championing free trade.

Join Matt Little for this workshop focusing on how to take your cyber business to the next level of internationalisation.

Wednesday 23rd March from 10am – 11.30am.

To register, email: matt.newman@trade.gov.uk

DASA are delighted to announce a new DASA Themed Competition on advanced radio frequency sensing, integrated effects and PNT. They are holding a briefing on Thursday 3rd March and pre-bookable one-to-one sessions on Tuesday 8th and Thursday 10th March 2022 (all online). The competition closes at midday on the 26th of April. They welcome proposals from as low as fundamental technical principles and concepts (TRL1 or TRL2) but at the end of the project, outputs should be between TRL3 and TRL6. Proposals must offer a view on exploitation beyond DASA project completion. They have £2.8m and expect to fund 15-20 proposals.

There are five Challenge areas:

  • distributed RF sensing
  • integrated sensing and effects
  • integrated sensing and effects enablers
  • PNT as a service
  • Novel concepts and architectures for advanced RF sensing and effectors

More details are here:
https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/advanced-radio-frequency-sensing-integrated-effects-and-pnt/competition-document-advanced-radio-frequency-sensing-integrated-effects-and-pnt

Responding to the Transport Minister’s Workplace Parking Levy comments at the Net Zero, Energy and Transport Committee in the Scottish Parliament earlier today, Dr Liz Cameron, Chief Executive of the Scottish Chambers of Commerce said:

“Scotland’s businesses have consistently opposed the introduction of the Workplace Parking Levy (WPL) in Scotland due to the additional financial burden it places on businesses and their employees.

“Businesses are still recovering from the financial impact of the pandemic, which has severely reduced trade and significantly increased costs over the past two years, hitting our town and city centres hard.

“By failing to impose a cap on charges, businesses across Scotland will now face a postcode lottery and some difficult decisions at a critical point in their recovery

“Many businesses are concerned that local authorities, whose budgets are already stretched, may now seek to implement this levy as a revenue stream rather than for purely environmental reasons.

“To support Scotland’s economic recovery, the Scottish Government should think again about the negative impact that unlimited workplace parking levy charges will have on Scotland’s businesses.”

DASA Scotland is delighted to announce a new DASA Themed Competition – Telexistence Phase 2 which closes on 06 April.

We are looking for innovators to develop a complete telexistence system. This will involve the integration of telepresence, robotic and haptic technologies onto a single platform. Solutions must enable the user to experience and interact with the remote environment as if they were physically there.

We will invite successful innovators to our laboratories to evaluate the capabilities of their systems against a series of tasks that are representative of a use case. Suppliers will choose one use case from the following:

  • Specialist Nuclear Decommissioning Tasks
  • Explosive Ordnance Disposal (EOD)
  • Defence and Security Medical applications

There is a Q&A dial-in session on 27 January and you can book one-to-one sessions on 01 and 09 February.

More information including signup links is here

https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/telexistence-phase-2/telexistence-phase-2-competition-document

If you have any questions, please get in touch.

DASA currently have two market explorations open:

Hybridisation of the Naval Fleet

They would like to identify available hybrid powertrain technologies, at Technology Readiness Levels (TRLs) 5-9, for implementation into service by 2030. Further information here:

https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/hybridisation-of-the-naval-fleet/hybridisation-of-the-naval-fleet-market-exploration-document

 

Evidential Testing of Drug Drivers

On behalf of the Home Office (HO), DASA is running a Market Exploration to identify technologies or concept of operations from across the Technology Readiness Level (TRL) spectrum that have the potential for point of contact testing to identify specified drugs, at defined levels, in suspected drug drivers. Further information is here:

https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/market-exploration-evidential-testing-of-drug-drivers/evidential-testing-of-drug-drivers-market-exploration-document

 

There is an update on the Defence Innovation Loans (for late stage R&D and commercialisation activities, TRL 6 and up) These will now run continuously until 16 March 2022, which means no more cycles during this time. Innovators can now apply at any time and receive initial feedback within 7 weeks. As a reminder there is a total of £10 million is available for the Defence Innovation Loans this year. Innovators can apply for a loan between £250,000 and £1.6 million. More information can be found here:

https://www.gov.uk/government/news/applying-for-defence-innovations-loans-is-now-even-easier

 

They have one themed competition open at present, which is Catch the Chem-Bio Scent! They are seeking proposals that can address challenges associated with screening for, the preservation of sample / evidence, and the attribution of hazardous chemical and biological (ChemBio) materials. More details are here:

https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/catch-the-chembio-scent

More themed calls will be launched shortly.

 

Their Open Call for Innovation is now open for cycle 5 applications.  They welcome applications into the defence and security rapid impact streams and across all of their Innovation Focus Areas.  At present the emerging innovations (lower TRL) is not open for applications.  Further information can be found at:

https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/defence-and-security-accelerator-dasa-open-call-for-innovation/open-call-competition-document#what-is-the-open-call

Made smarter innovation: sustainable smart factory

UK registered businesses can apply for a share of up to £20 million for digital innovation projects that will improve the resource efficiency and energy efficiency of manufacturing processes in factories.

FIND OUT MORE AND APPLY >

Automotive Transformation Fund expression of interest: round 17

Registered businesses can apply for a share of up to £1 billion for capital centric investment projects that help industrialise the electrified automotive supply chain at scale in the UK.

FIND OUT MORE AND APPLY >

Innovate UK smart grants: Deadline extended until 12 January 2022

UK registered organisations can apply for a share of up to £25 million for game-changing and commercially viable research and development (R&D) innovation that can significantly impact the UK economy.

FIND OUT MORE AND APPLY >

NATEP helping SMEs innovate in aerospace

UK registered businesses can apply for a share of up to £2.5 million to carry out industry-led civil aerospace collaborative R&D projects.

FIND OUT MORE AND APPLY >

Early ideas to improve the delivery of nucleic acid therapeutics

UK registered businesses can apply for a share of up to £6 million to improve the delivery of nucleic acid therapeutics.

FIND OUT MORE AND APPLY >

The UK Government is calling on industry to submit their interest in piloting the Ecosystem of Trust concept that was outlined on our 2025 UK Border strategy.

As set out in the 2025 UK Border Strategy, the UK Government is looking to use data, technology and trusted relationships to deliver robust upstream compliance which would allow processes to be moved away from the frontier and facilitate improved flow of goods. This Ecosystem of Trust concept will be delivered in partnership with users of the border and the border industry to develop a world leading technology enabled border.

In order to pilot the concept they are inviting stakeholders with an interest in the movement of goods, to express their interest in partaking in a pilot over the course of 2022. Initial expressions of interest are due by 31st of January 2022 and following this they will hold workshops with interested parties to set out the key challenges any solution will need to overcome. This will allow consortia to set out project proposals for their pilots which will be assessed with the best proposals taken forward from May.

Find out more and submit an expression of interest at GOV.UK

Please note that this is just a summary of the key information and you should read the full Hybridisation of the Naval Fleet: Market Exploration Document prior to submitting any responses.

Background

This Market Exploration exercise aims to find a Hybrid Powertrain potential solution for use in Royal Navy (RN) and Auxiliary ships. This is to aid the defence environmental sustainability strategy, to reduce carbon emissions to net zero by no later than 2050. Through prior research it has been found that hybrid engines have the potential to significantly reduce the overall emissions of RN and Auxiliary ships. By conducting a Market Exploration it is hoped that this technology can be taken further and implemented into active service.

What we want

DASA are interested in current or soon to be introduced Hybrid Powertrain potential solutions for use on RN and Auxiliary vessels in order to achieve a 20-40% emissions reduction by 2030. Potential solutions are sought around electrification (AC as well as DC) and electrical storage.

The Market Exploration will need to explore potential solutions capable of propelling ships such as:

  • Mass of 65,000 Tonnes at a speed of no less than 25 Knots. Length – 280m, Beam – 39/73m, Draught – 11m. Propulsion output is 4x 20MW
  • Mass of 6,900 Tonnes at a minimum of 26 Knots. Length – 150m, Beam – 21m. Power output is 2x 20MW
  • Mass of 7,350 Tonnes at a minimum speed requirement of 32 Knots. Length – 280m, Beam – 39/73m. Power output is 2x 21.5MW

What we don’t want

DASA are not interested in literature reviews, paper-based studies, consultancy, non-technical potential solutions or marginal improvements to existing capabilities. Potential solutions cannot only run on standard diesel and must have the adaptability to run with future fuels.

This is not a competition and therefore they are not asking for fully costed proposals at this stage. This is a market engagement request for information exercise, and we do not commit to subsequently launch a formal competition.

How to submit a Market Exploration Submission to DASA

Responses to this Market Exploration must be submitted via the DASA submission service, for which you will need to register.  You will be asked for a title and short summary of your innovation, along with questions related to your organisation, your idea and technology maturity.

Submissions must be submitted by midday (GMT) on 27 January 2022. Unfortunately DASA are unable to accept any submissions after this point.

Please only provide details of one product/capability per submission. If you have a number of potential solutions, then please submit multiple forms.

If you have any questions then please email accelerator@dstl.gov.uk with “Hybridisation of the Naval Fleet” in the subject line.