Innovation Vouchers

Eligible activities: 

General activities and processes: 

• New product/ process development
• New business model development
• Efficiency audit, process change
• Supply chain management and logistics
• New service delivery and customer interface
• New service development
• Product and service testing and economic impact assessment
• Innovation/technology audit

Specific activities where particular limitations apply: 

• Exploiting advances web technologies for the region and/or industry (this does not include standard web design, development or search optimisation)
• Market research
• Equipment purchases to develop prototypes
• Capital items to develop prototypes
• Software purchases to develop prototypes 

Types of processes that include the above themes: 

• 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
• Concept testing
• Development of Business Plan
• Beta Testing and Market Testing
• Producing a physical prototype or mock-up
• Testing the product (and its packaging) in typical usage situations
• Conducting focus group customer interviews
• Producing an initial run of the product
• Technical implementation
• New programme initiation
• Finalising Quality Management System
• Resource estimation
• Requirement publication
• Publishing technical communications such as data sheets
• Engineering operations planning
• Department scheduling
• Supplier collaboration
• Logistics plan
• Resource plan publication
• Program review and monitoring
• Contingencies - what-if planning
• Commercialization (often considered post-NPD)
• Launch the product
• Critical path analysis
• New Product Pricing
• Impact of new product on the entire product portfolio
• Value Analysis (internal & external)
• Analysis of competition and alternative competitive technologies
• Analysis of costs and selling price
• Forecast of unit volumes, revenue, and profit

Exploiting advanced web technologies for the region and/ or industry (this does not include standard web design, development or search optimisation) 

• Consultancy towards IT Strategy and Value Optimisation
• Building security algorithms & AI
• Design & building of Integrated Development Environments (IDEs)
• 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
  scanners etc. that can be controlled through web technologies

Market research 

• Launch new products or services
• Off the shelf market research reports
• Customised market research done through professional consultants & market research Companies
• Overseas market entry research reports done by specialist Accredited organisations / trade & industry bodies in the UK & overseas

Ineligible activities: 

• Achieving compliance with statutory regulations or legislation
• Intellectual property protection
• Standard training courses
• Software purchases
• Capital equipment purchases
• Aid that would promote/subsidise the cost of exports
• Internships for students of knowledge providers
• Design and production of advertising materials
• Sales and marketing activities –this includes standards website design, development and search optimisation (the only exception would be the exploitation of new web technology for the region and /or industry)
• Advertising and promotional activities e.g. design of posters leaflets etc.
• Accreditations
• Capital items
• Travel costs
• Continuation and existing projects with the knowledge providers
• Legal advice