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Newton-Ungku Omar Fund
Call for Participants for Malaysia Visit, ahead of new competition
Deadline for applications: 1 June 2015
Summary
The UK and Malaysian governments have established the Newton-Ungku Omar Fund to
support Malaysia’s urbanisation agenda, which will promote economic growth, equity and
environmental sustainability hand-in-hand. The Fund is enabling research and innovation
partnerships between the UK and Malaysia to strengthen; excellent joint research to emerge;
and new commercial solutions to the challenges of urbanisation to be developed.
For more background to the Newton Fund, please see: www.newtonfund.ac.uk.
Innovate UK - in conjunction with the Research Councils UK (RCUK) and the Malaysia IndustryGovernment Group for High Technology (MIGHT) - is launching a competition offering
collaborative R&D funding in June 2015. This competition seeks to support the translation of
excellent research into commercial solutions (new products, services or business processes) to
meet the most critical challenges faced by Malaysia on its urbanisation journey. The
competition will be open to collaborations of UK and Malaysian parties working together to
identify these new solutions.
To help UK and Malaysian participants interested in this competition to meet and develop
collaborative partnerships, the Knowledge Transfer Network Ltd (KTN) on behalf of Innovate
UK and MIGHT is organising a visit for UK stakeholders to Malaysia during the dates of 4th to 9th
July 2015, inclusive of travel time.
More details about the competition and the visit are given below. Innovate UK welcomes
applications from UK participants interested in attending this visit. Applicants meeting the
specified criteria are requested to fill in the attached application form.
Urbanisation in Malaysia
Malaysia is a predominantly urban nation with over 70% of its population living in cities (more
than 20 million people). This total is expected to grow to over 80% in 10 years time. The rate of
urbanisation has been rapid: urban Malaysia has grown from 40% in 1980 to 60% in 2000.
Whilst Kuala Lumpur remains by far the largest urban agglomeration, George Town and Johor
Bahru have also grown to be centres of more than 1 million. Urbanisation is spread across the
country: it has more than 15 urban centres of around between 200,000 to 1 million people.
For many years now, the Government of Malaysia has recognised the grand challenges that
urbanisation and climate change present to each other and to the country’s growth. The
Government understands that tackling these challenges jointly through a coordinated
approach is critical to sustaining its impressive economic growth. Malaysia is one of 13
countries identified by the Commission of Growth and Development of the World Bank in its
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2008 Growth Report to have recorded average economic growth of more than 7 percent per
year for 25 years or more; whilst at the same time seeing the share of households living below
the national poverty line fall to less than one percent currently.
Today Malaysia is a multi-sector economy, having transformed away from a producer of raw
materials at is was in the 1970s. Under the 11th Malaysian Plan (2016-2020), the country’s
vision is to achieve high-income status by 2020, moving further up the value-addition
production chain by attracting high technology industries and services. The Plan recognises its
cities as “growth poles” in re-engineering this desired economic growth in the country. It also
recognises green growth being at the heart of the Plan. The goals of the Plan are ambitious;
and Malaysia recognises ‘smart solutions’ including smart city technology as a critical
component achieving the Plan and of cities’ future growth and improvement.
Innovate UK/RCUK/MIGHT Research and Innovation Bridges Competition
The purpose of Innovate UK’s partnership with RCUK and MIGHT in Malaysia is to build upon
excellent science, research and business skills-set existing in both the UK and Malaysia,
translating that science and research into new commercial solutions that support Malaysia’s
green urban growth agenda.
As part of this partnership, Innovate UK/RCUK/MIGHT will be launching a Research and
Innovation Bridges competition, to open on 22 June 2015, with a focus on climate change and
sustainable urbanisation. Funding will be made available for Research and Innovation Bridges
(a form of collaborative R&D) that propose solutions to key challenges faced by Malaysia under
the grand challenge of urbanisation, and which demonstrate the clear translation of excellent
research into products, processes and services with high industrial relevance and commercial
potential.
Approximately £14 million will be made available under the competition (£7m from Innovate
UK and RCUK to UK participants and £7m from MIGHT to Malaysian participants).
A Research and Innovation Bridge (R&I Bridge)
Under the R&I Bridges competition, Innovate UK/RCUK/MIGHT will fund consortia
collaborations of business, research organisations, and non-profit organisations from the UK
and Malaysia (each consortium containing parties from both the UK and Malaysia), which seek
to nurture innovative solutions in response Malaysia’s urbanisation challenge, through the
translation of existing, excellent research. Each grant made to a single consortium under the
competition will be called a R&I Bridge.
It is recognised that solutions to socio-economic challenges come in several shapes and forms:
the primary focus of a Bridge will be on enabling innovative commercial solutions to emerge, in
the form of new products or services to address the challenge of climate change and
sustainable urbanisation, or new processes that enable commercial cost-efficiency in the
challenge.
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It is anticipated that the Bridges will build upon existing areas and models of academia-industry
translation strength in the UK, currently being propagated by Innovate UK and RCUK, or other
significant funders such as the EU or Wellcome Trust; and similar on the Malaysian side.
What is an R&I Bridge aiming to achieve?
A R&I Bridge should:
 Accelerate the deployment of knowledge and the exploitation of research in order to
create new products, services and processes that meet the climate change and sustainable
urbanisation challenges.
 Encourage economic development by improving knowledge exchange between academia,
businesses, public services, and non-profit sectors in and between the UK and Malaysia,
with the objective of creating relationships that should last longer than the grant funding
available.
 Enable the acquisition of new innovative research skills/methodologies.
 Draw attention of businesses to new and emerging opportunities and challenges.
Scope focus
Under the grand challenge of climate change and sustainable urbanisation, focus will most
likely be on the following sectors:
1. Health and life sciences
2. Improving environmental resilience and energy security
3. Future cities
4. Agricultural technology (Agritech to solve explicit urban food and nutrition issues)
5. Digital innovation and creativity.
Eligibility
 Each Bridge must be collaborative between the UK and Malaysia.
 The intention of the Bridge is to find new solutions to some of Malaysia’s most critical
urban challenges, and improve socio-economic development in the country.
 The collaboration must be led by organisations in the UK and Malaysia whose primary
focus is on the translation and commercialisation of research and/or knowledge. This
competition is not about funding basic research. It is envisaged that research and
technology organisations (RTOs) or similar organisations that are looking for longer-term
collaborations with partner countries would apply as lead from the UK.
 Organisations eligible to be part of a consortium include: RTOs, Catapults and similar; all
sizes of businesses seeking funding for their ideas; academics looking to progress their
ideas into a successful business proposition; other research organisations; public sector
organisations including city governments; and charitable organisations. From the UK side,
registered businesses must be part of the collaboration.
 UK institutions must be able to demonstrate that the Research and Innovation Bridge will
build upon a portfolio of research and development funded either by Innovate UK and/or
Research Councils UK or other significant funders, such as the EU and the Wellcome Trust.
More details on the Research and Innovation Bridges competition are given in Annex 1.
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This call for participants
Innovate UK/RCUK/MIGHT would like to support UK and Malaysian organisations to develop
strong collaborations to enter this competition. We recognise that having the opportunity to
meet potential partners and discuss potential collaborations ahead of submitting an application
would be helpful. For this reason, the Knowledge Transfer Network Ltd (KTN) is organising a 4day visit in Malaysia during the week of 6th July 2015, on behalf of Innovate UK and MIGHT.
Our objective is to take a group of approximately 20 UK stakeholders over to Malaysia and
provide sufficient opportunity for these stakeholders to identify and meet with potential
Malaysian partners, and take forward discussions on collaborations. We also aim to give UK
stakeholders a good appreciation of the urbanisation challenges that Malaysia faces and the
context of what it means to working in Malaysia, with Malaysian counterparts.
The visit will most likely consist of:
 a brokering event (or events) where UK and Malaysian companies, research organisations
and others can showcase their capabilities and areas of project interest.
 a briefing event for:
o UK stakeholders on the innovation and investment landscape in Malaysia;
o Malaysian companies on the innovation and investment landscape in UK;
 trip/s to key Malaysian urban projects that reflects the challenges and opportunities the
competition is attempting to address.
We invite applications to attend this visit from eligible parties genuinely interested in
submitting a proposal under the R&I call. Applicants must fill up the attached application form.
Applications for the visit will be assessed on a competitive basis. A panel (made up of
representatives Innovate UK, RCUK and the KTN) will then be convened to judge the
submissions and select the organisations.
The deadline for submitting the application is: 1 June 2015.
Successful applicants will be informed by: 5 June 2015.
Successful applicants will be expected to pay a £1000 contribution towards costs of the visit,
primarily to cover flights and accommodation.
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Annex 1 – Research and Innovation Bridges
1. Guiding Principles of an R&I Bridge
Funding of a R&I Bridge will be guided by the following principles:
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Be solution-orientated, seeking to address critical socio-economic development challenges
within Malaysia.
Recognise a broad view of both innovation, and social welfare and economic development.
Involve a mutual exchange of knowledge between partners, rather than a unidirectional
transfer.
As far as possible, engage a wide range of partners, including civil society, which will be a
crucial element to consider when attempting to addresses the social welfare and economic
development of partner needs.
Be flexible in nature, both with regards to how they operate and how they are managed.
Incorporate an interdisciplinary approach to tackling issues where appropriate.
2. Activities covered under a R&I Bridge
Applicants will need to showcase how the activities they propose will result in the
commercialisation of research in response to the challenge of urbanisation.
In terms of category of research and development (please see:
https://interact.innovateuk.org/-/funding-rules#public), the R&I Bridges call with Malaysia is
focused on supporting industrial research projects. Projects with elements of feasibility studies
and/or experimental research will be considered where appropriate, depending on the
maturity of the R&D and proximity to commercialisation.
Industrial research means the planned research or critical investigation aimed at the acquisition
of new knowledge and skills for developing new products, processes or services, or for bringing
about a significant improvement in existing products, processes or services. It comprises the
creation of component parts to complex systems, and may include the construction of
prototypes in a laboratory environment or in an environment with simulated interfaces to
existing systems as well as of pilot lines, when necessary for the industrial research, notably for
generic technology validation. Typically these projects should have already demonstrated
feasibility at bench scale. Projects will contain a significant and identifiable element of
technological innovation and risk, starting from the proof of concept maturity level and
working towards demonstrating performance.
A typical project would be one that aims to meet a specific challenge posed by Malaysia’s rapid
urbanisation through collaborations of RTOs, businesses, other research organisations, public
sector organisation and charities from the UK and Malaysia that are able to translate excellent
research into a new commercial solution or suite of solutions (product, service or a new
business process). For example, this may come in the form of new solutions to manage city
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systems more intelligently, and also manage the integration of systems; it may come in the
form of new solutions to health challenges posed by decreasing urban air quality.
Applications will have to demonstrate how they meet the Newton Fund criteria of:
 addressing poverty or the issues of lower-income communities in partner countries;
 addressing the problem identified effectively and efficiently;
 supporting the creation of strong, sustainable and systemic relationships between the
UK’s research base and innovation ecosystem and those of the partner country; and
how they will continue beyond the period during which it will receive money from the
Newton Fund;
 identifying benefits that will accrue to the partner country;
 where the project involves research and other relevant areas, evidence that it will be
internationally excellent;
 demonstrating that the project will build genuine partnerships, with demonstrable buyin from the partner country, for example, through matched funding or resources.
3. Size of funding per Bridge
It is envisaged each Bridge award made by Innovate UK and RCUK to the UK side of a UKMalaysia joint application will in the region of £0.5m - £1.5m grant over 24 to 36 months, but
more substantial awards will also be considered. We are aiming to fund around 5-7 Bridges.
Given the heavy focus on translation of existing, excellent research, it is likely that a Research
Organisation’s contribution of total project costs will be up to 50%.
4. Timetable
This is a 2-stage competition that opens for applicant on 22 June 2015.
 Stage 1 – each applicant submits an expression of interest, which is assessed. The deadline
for expressions of interest is 19 August 2015.
 Stage 2 – we invited selected applicants to submit an application. The second stage
deadline for invited applications is 4 November 2015.
 All deadlines are at noon on the day of submission.
Applications will be assessed on individual merit by an independent panel of experts.
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