Defence Online

Type of document: Contract Notice
Country: United Kingdom

1. Title: FUTURE FLIGHT: REGIONAL DEMONSTRATOR – FUNDING
2. Awarding Authority: Innovate UK, part of UK Research and Innovation, will work with the Department for Transport (DfT), GB Tel: 03003214357. Email: support@iuk.ukri.org.
3. Contract type: Service contract
4. Description: The Awarding Authority to invest up to £600,000 in new innovation projects.
These projects will be to demonstrate the commercial viability of regional drone, electric take off and landing (eVTOL) or zero emission conventional take off and landing (CTOL) aircraft operations or services in the specified location. This will foster investment and catalyse commercialisation of future flight products and services.
The aim of this competition is to accelerate the transition from trials of cutting edge innovations to real world commercial operations at a regional scale. This will unlock high value, socio-economic benefits for UK communities and meet the objectives of the DfT Future of Flight programme.
Your project must deliver one or more of the following:
a detailed pathway to transform demonstrations to real world commercial operations at scale in a selected UK geographical area
a business case for commercial drone, eVTOL or zero emission CTOL aircraft services that deliver high value socio-economic benefits to a selected UK geographical area
a proof of concept, or concept of operations, for commercial drone, eVTOL or zero emission CTOL aircraft services at scale across a selected UK geographical area
a development plan for a living lab or test bed, representative of the future flight operating ecosystem, to accelerate regional scale regulatory, community and infrastructure (physical, digital, airspace, energy, communications) readiness for commercial drone, eVTOL or zero emission CTOL aircraft operations
acceleration of multimodal transport with drone, eVTOL or zero emission CTOL aircraft integrated into regional transport networks or regional transport hubs, including airports
a commercial development plan for drone, eVTOL or zero emission CTOL aircraft services in a selected UK geographical area, based on identified commercially viable use cases that meet socio-economic needs for the region and customer demand
Note: the commercial development plan can include a study to determine decision making authorities, roles and frameworks across the regulator, local government authorities and local community to accelerate safe, coordinated and socially accepted integration of commercial drone, eVTOL or zero emission CTOL aircraft services in a selected UK geographical area.
Projects must include at least one local government authority, and at least one operator, end user or customer.
In applying to this competition, you are entering into a competitive process. This competition has a funding limit, so we may not be able to fund all the proposed projects. It may be the case that your project scores highly but we are still unable to fund it.
This competition closes at 11am UK time on the deadline stated in this Innovate UK competition brief. We cannot guarantee other government or third party sites will always show the correct competition information.
5. CPV Code(s): 73000000, 73100000, 73210000
6. NUTS code(s): UK, UKK, UKK1, UKK14
7. Main site or location of works, main place of delivery or main place of performance: UK
8. Reference attributed by awarding authority: Not provided.
9. Estimated value of requirement: UK registered organisations can apply for a share of up to £600,000 for the development of regional demonstrators of drone, electric take off and landing (eVTOL) or zero emission conventional take off and landing (CTOL) aircraft operations in the UK.
Funding type
Grant
Project size
Your project’s total eligible grant funding request must be between £150,000 and £200,000.
10. Competition closes: 11.6.2025 (11:00:00).
11. Address to which they must be sent: For further information regarding the above contract notice please visit:
12. Other information: 12 May 2025: Competition opens
19 May 2025: Online briefing event: join at 3.30pm
Briefing slides will be available to download from Supporting Information after the event.
11 June 2025 11:00am: Competition closes
3 July 2025: Applicants notified
1 September 2025: Project start on
TKR-2025512-EX-1843624