Defence Online

CDE themed competition: synthetic biology for transparent materials

November 2, 2016

This Centre for Defence Enterprise (CDE) themed competition is looking for highly innovative, ambitious proposals using synthetic biology approaches to produce transparent materials for defence and security.

There are many military uses for transparent armour. For this competition CDE is interested in new transparent materials that are thinner, lighter and offer better ballistic protection than we have now.

This CDE competition seeks proposals against 2 technology challenges:

1. novel transparent materials
2. adhesives and interlayer materials to use with transparent materials

Proposals must have a synthetic biology component in their approach and phase-1 projects should produce enough material to demonstrate the proof of concept.

Up to £750,000 is available for phase 1 of this competition.

CDE expect to fund a number of projects around £40,000 to £80,000 with research lasting up to 9 months, with phase-1 deliverables completed by the end of February 2018.

Up to £1 million will be made available for phase 2. This will only be to projects funded through phase 1 of the competition and will be considered on a per-project basis.

This competition opens on 10 November 2016 when the competition document will be published. It’ll be briefed at the CDE Innovation Network event in London on Thursday 1 December 2016. A webinar will take place on Monday 5 December 2016 if you can’t make the event in London.

This competition closes on Thursday 2 February 2017 at 5pm. Proposals must be submitted to CDE online.

Total funding for phase 1 of this competition is up to £750,000.

Proposals must be submitted to CDE online.

CDE competition funding synthetic biology synthetic biology for transparent materials

Post written by: Vicky Maggiani

Vicky has worked in media for over 20 years and has a wealth of experience in editing and creating copy for a variety of sectors.