The Technology Strategy Board will invest up to £25m in a large-scale demonstrator for future cities.
The project will demonstrate at scale, and in use, the additional value that can be created by integrating city systems. The project will enable businesses to test, in practice, new solutions for connecting and integrating city systems, and will allow UK cities to explore new approaches to delivering a good local economy and excellent quality of life, whilst reducing the environmental footprint and increasing resilience to environmental change.
This will be a two-stage competition process. Cities will be invited to bid for funding to carry out a feasibility study and develop their demonstrator project proposal. Up to 20 grants of £50k will be available and will be funded at 100% of eligible costs. A requirement of the 100% public funding is that a publicly available report is produced on the results of the feasibility study.
In the second stage, cities will complete their feasibility study report and can also submit a proposal for the large-scale demonstrator. Up to £24m is available for the project. The demonstrator will attract 100% public funding of eligible costs. To achieve the scale required to effectively test the value of integrating city systems, we intend to fund a single demonstrator project. A requirement of the 100% public funding is that the results of the demonstrator project are made publicly available and are widely disseminated.
This is a competition for cities. Stage 1 will open on 11 June 2012 and applications must be submitted by noon on 5 July 2012. Feasibility study reports and full stage 2 applications must be submitted by noon on 14 November 2012.
