British Marine has identified a need for its members to be better informed of the general funding landscape and to ensure that they are able to make full advantage of government support.
The funding landscape across the range of activities undertaken by both commercial for-profit, academia and research institutes, public sector and not for profit organisations is extremely complicated, whilst the nature of funding itself is varied, depending on what an organisation is looking to achieve.
Funding may come through a variety of sources, such as Sales, profit margin on a product or service sufficient to fund RDI (research, development and innovation), new assets (plant, machinery equipment or buildings) or other activities, Share capital and equity buy in, via angels or venture capital, Loans without equity buy in, such as from banks, where the original capital and interest have to be repaid, Grants, which are usually non-repayable
This section will focus on grant funding. It seeks to bring some structure to that aspect of the landscape and act as a resource for members of British Marine, who are themselves diverse in nature.
Grant funding is available across the range of activities undertaken by British Marine members, whether that be for R&I (Research and Innovation), training, manufacturing, marketing, general business or other activities.
For each grant funding organisation or mechanism, information is variously provided on their purpose and function, the broad types of funding available and examples of specific funding competitions. Further details can be found via the urls provided for that organisation.
It is important to remember, however, that the funding landscape is very fluid. Funded competition calls change all the time as new ones open and close for applications.
It is suggested that members set up a process for monitoring the funding landscape via the funding pages of the organisations mentioned in these pages. Monitoring is an on-going process - a frequent (possibly weekly) activity because:
- individual grant funding opportunities are short lived, sometimes put out in response to a particular issue, such as COVID-19, or changing over time to cover particular themes; a typical competition call for funding is open for about 2 months or shorter, and no longer than 3 months, even if competition calls have the same name or title, the scope may change. Thus, although one call may not be relevant to a business, another may be.
- A monitoring system should also involve signing up for alerts from the grant funding organisations themselves or third parties.
To find out more about the UK's systems of funding, where to find out what funds are available, who can help you and how to apply, please click here: FUNDING