A bit of a postcode lottery

Early stage funding of UK-based engineering and new technology research and development projects appears to have taken a backward step over the past year or so. Contrary to what we hear from the Government and its various industry bodies, after digging around for the past few months, Eureka has unearthed some very interesting, but worrying, facts. Up until a year ago, the Government's Smart awards were generally viewed by industry, inventors, design engineers and the DTI itself as its most successful product ever. These awards were often the only means by which inventors and innovative companies could get their ideas off the ground to prototype stage. Other grants were either too small (£12k was stated as the maximum for 'Investigating an Innovative Idea' but more realistically £9k or £10k) or required collaboration with several other companies or academic institution. However, despite its success, the current Government has reduced the funding significantly, by around 80% compared to two years ago. And if this isn't enough, the administration has been changed from the DTI's Small Business Service to the Regional Development Agencies (RDAs). According to several Eureka readers (who wish to remain nameless) there is little central control in the new administrative framework and the system as a whole is "hugely chaotic" according to one individual. If you're based in Wales or Scotland, the original Smart system is still in place and working well as far as we can tell. It's only in England that the 'shambles' has occurred. Judging by your letters and e-mails, the problem seems to be getting worse in England. Take the South West Regional Development Agency (SWRDA) for example. At the time of writing, it hadn't even appointed anybody to run the new scheme and when quizzed by Eureka, nobody from the organisation knew anything about what the status is, was likely to be or whether there was likely to be a 'competition' for funds open in the near future. Bad luck if you live in Cornwall or Devon then. It gets better though. Yorkshire Forward was unable to give dates or funding details for the R&D early stage grant. However, what we do know is that the organisation is spending £2.3 million with a company called Scientific Generics to advise companies in the Yorkshire area about how to boost their business via innovation. Incidentally, Scientific Generics is on the verge of bankruptcy, following a share price 'crash' from 320p to around 12p at the time of writing. The firm is evidently being kept afloat by Yorkshire Forward. Some RDAs run competitions for its funds, others have a rolling schedule so that people and companies can apply at any time. In the North West, for example, the last competition was in December 2004. Four grants were awarded from 75 eligible applications. Of course, there were many more applications which the North West Development Agency's (NWDA) decided were not eligible. The next projects will start (receive funding) in October 2005. A Eureka reader who attended a recent event hosted by the NWDA, told this magazine that the NWDA "was doing more harm than good" and felt that many people in industry were being led to believe that the grants for R&D were generally available for innovative new projects. However, he added that the chances of success "were minimal" and "because of incompetence and lack of organisation" the situation is worsening. Most inventors or design engineers, whose ideas or technologies have been covered recently in Eureka's Funding Design Innovation' section, agreed with these comments regarding the new system of funding. Many companies spend time and effort putting together the raft of necessary paperwork for an R&D funding application. The problem is, RDAs and Business Link Advisors get paid according to how many applications they help put together. So it's not in their interest to tell the truth to applicants - that their chances of success are minimal. As manufacturing and design people, we should all know that it takes time to organise new systems and procedures. But the current situation is nothing short of shameful. The negative effects of the current postcode lottery system have been exacerbated by the RDAs slow timescales in getting their act together. So, on reflection it seems that if you're an innovator in Surrey, Cambridgeshire or Buckinghamshire (some of the richest parts of the country) you can apply for an R&D grant and expect to have a reasonable chance of success. But if you reside in Cornwall, South Yorkshire or Merseyside (some of the poorer parts of England and European Priority One funding areas) you cannot currently apply for a grant because the local RDAs haven't bothered to put administration teams in place yet t handle the applications. And this, despite the move from DTI to RDA being announced in this magazine some 16 months ago. Simply not good enough.