The Inward Mission – Transforming Foundation Industries is organised by Innovate UK and delivered by Innovate UK EDGE. The programme consists of a visit to the UK’s thriving Foundation Industries locations, giving UK and Indian companies a chance to see the facilities the UK has to offer. In addition, it provides a chance to form partnerships ahead of a £10m bilateral funding call, which is in the final stages of discussion, due to be launched in April 2023.

The Inward Mission forms a key step in the collaboration building activities ahead of this funding call, as proposals must include partners from both the UK and India to work jointly on sustainability for the Foundation Industries. It also provides an opportunity to visit and build relationships with key research organisations in the UK.

It is focused on helping your business to maximise the opportunities, provide international partnership and help you to develop your innovation and bring your ideas to commercialisation.

Innovate UK is committed to Equality, Diversity, and Inclusion (ED&I) and encourages people from all backgrounds to apply to participate.

Why are India & UK collaborating?

Foundation Industries are seeing growing demand for products due to the growing population, expanding market, and large-scale public-sector investments. From our long history of collaborating, it has been shown that there are areas where the UK is leading and India can learn from, and vice versa.

Indian Foundation Industries face similar sustainability challenges to their UK counterparts with high dependence on fossil fuels and virgin raw materials and are looking for similar solutions. Following the agreement of a 2030 Roadmap for Bilateral Relationship (with climate cooperation a key pillar) and the ongoing discussions of a Free Trade Agreement, Innovate UK has run a series of successful engagement activities with India including a lab-to-lab collaboration programme and the Global Expert Mission and in February 2023 we will be running a Global Business Innovation Programme with India.

The benefits of being involved with this Inward Mission include a visit to two key regions in the UK; Liverpool City Region and the Midlands through our partners Glass Futures and Manufacturing Technology Centre, understanding of funding initiatives and to form B2B partnerships and collaboration.

Focus Industries / Sectors

This initiative is particularly relevant for businesses and research organisations in Foundation Industries and those that focus on delivering sustainability solutions for the sector in metals, glass, paper, cements, ceramics and chemicals, to enable energy and resource efficiency.

These may be achieved through:

• Enabling technologies – digital solutions, sensors and controls, heat recovery systems, value added processes for waste streams
• New business models
• New and more efficient production processes
• New supply chain models

Benefits

• Visit key UK Foundation Industry centres of excellence and Research and Technology Organisations to understand their capabilities
• Explore opportunities in Foundation Industries to grow your business internationally
• Hear the latest on the £10m bilateral funding call and the application process direct from funders
• Improve the development of projects by meeting potential UK innovation partners, through organised matchmaking, and get a head start on funding applications

To apply for this initiative, you must be:

• Business/company (start-up, SME or large/multinational)
• Or commercial institutes & labs, leading academic centres
• Either a foundation industry business (metals, paper, glass, cements, ceramics and chemicals) or have a technology to enable energy or resource efficiency for these organisations.