Events

The KTN on behalf of DfT and Innovate UK is running a series of briefing events in support of this competition as follows:

• Tuesday 26th February, London – also available online
• Thursday 28th February, Manchester 
• Thursday 7th March, Cardiff – hosted by Welsh Government

Do you have an innovative product or service ready for market exploitation, but which has not yet been demonstrated in a live UK rail environment? Or are you a railway organisation with a vision to improve the UK rail industry? If so, this First of a Kind (FoaK) competition may be for you.

The scope themes for FoaK 3 are:

• Operational Resilience
• Infrastructure Resilience
• Freight (non-passenger transport)
• Noise / Environment

These projects will provide railway organisations and suppliers with evidence they need to:

• Overcome constraints to the delivery of innovations;
• Create a more collaborative environment with innovative suppliers;
• Collect valuable feedback from the public to accelerate the pull through of innovations;
• Showcase the UK’s potential to deliver significantly improved experiences and rail services for domestic and export markets

Innovate UK is launching this First of a Kind programme on behalf of the DfT (Department for Transport) to accelerate innovation in the UK rail sector and enable technologies to be readily and efficiently integrated into the rail system.

The aim of the competition is to enable innovative solutions to take the final step to market readiness. It will break down barriers to the delivery of innovations into the rail industry by proving that innovations deliver the expected outcomes when integrated in a complex real-world rail environment.

The innovations in this competition must be:

• Market ready – high TRL proven technologies
• Very low technology risk

Applications to this competition must focus on:

• Fair value
• Integrating innovations to improve experience for customers’ activities
• Demonstrate proof of concept to rail customers and end-users.

Businesses can apply for a share of £5.5m for First of a Kind technology to develop demonstrators to enhance resilience, freight operations and the environment. This competition offers the potential of 100% funding, with projects starting by mid 2019.

Further details of the competition scope etc are available here.

The London briefing event will be opened by the Rail Minister, Andrew Jones MP.

London Agenda:

09:30 Registration

10:00 Welcome

Michelle Carter, Interim Head of Transport, Knowledge Transfer Network

10:10 Welcome and Introduction

Andrew Jones, Parliamentary Under Secretary for Transport

10:20 Scope of Competition

Kelvin Davies, Innovation Lead – Rail, Innovate UK

10:40 Application Process and Eligibility

Rhianne Montgomery, Programme Manager, Innovate UK

11:00 Q&A Session

11:15 Break & Networking

11:35 Challenges and Opportunities

Mark Gaddes, R&D, Network Rail

11:45 Challenges and Opportunities

Philip Pitman, Rail Innovation Manager, Costain

11:55 Challenges and Opportunities

Gareth Biggins, Innovation Manager, Arriva UK Trains

12:05 Deep Tube Upgrade Programme (DTUP)

David Furse, Senior Commercial Manager, Transport for London

12:15 Mark Stileman, Bid & Competition Manager, Ordnance Survey

12:25 Maggie Simpson, Director General, Rail Freight Group

12:30 HS2 Update

Speaker tbc

12:35 Steve Quantick, Transport Systems Catapult

12:40 Pitches

13:15 Lunch & Networking

14:00 Networking / Brokerage Session

Opportunity for 1:1s with challenge owners, Innovate UK and KTN

16:00 Close