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FORTH2O Policy Innovation Partnership

Innovation Challenges

Our Innovation Challenge awards provide funding of up to £50,000 for ambitious projects that will run for a maximum of 6 months and address one of our 5 Innovation Challenges. Open to both partner-led and academic-led proposals, these challenges support research and action-oriented initiatives that contribute to evidence-based policy and sustainable solutions for water, environment and society.

Innovation Challenge Awards

Please note calls for Innovation Challenge awards have now closed.

Read about the Innovation Challenges here

Read the guidance

photo of a seedling

The overall aim of this Commissioning Call is to identify productive and innovative research, policy, practice and project activities that help meet the shared vision we have developed together for the FORTH2O Partnership, of:

‘A system that works for everybody to secure our water futures and stimulate wellbeing and prosperity for both humans and our natural environment’

Enhanced System Outcomes

  • Strengthen regional place-making through integrated approaches
  • Improve health, wellbeing, and environmental sustainability
  • Share compelling stories of people’s relationships with water
  • Support businesses in becoming more competitive
  • Create opportunities for technological specialisation and job growth

Enhanced System Supports

  • Influence and improve the design of relevant policy
  • Expand and share evidence from social, economic, and environmental innovations
  • Enhance data capabilities for better decision-making
  • Strengthen collaboration and its supporting infrastructure
  • Build long-term regional capacity for research and innovation

There are two Pathways for applying for FORTH2O Large Awards:

Pathway A) Partner-led:

  • Charities, voluntary and community organisations (including subsidiaries)
  •  Community interest companies (CIC), social enterprises and co-operatives
  • Private Businesses and sole traders
  • Public sector organisations

Pathway A proposals should include a minimum of two FORTH2O Partners.
Additional stakeholders from outside the Partnership may also be included.
Academics may also be included, but this is capped at 20% of the project budget.

Pathway B) Academic-led:

  • Research Organisations/Independent Research Organisations (IROs)/Public
    Service Research Establishments (PSREs) that have gained UKRI eligibility.
  • University Researchers /Academics

Pathway B proposals should include a minimum of one project Partner, but the Partners’ combined costs cannot exceed 30% of the proposed total fEC. Additional stakeholders from outside the Partnership may also be included.

Examples may include (but are not limited to):

Research-led interventions

e.g. scoping studies, policy benchmarking, policy analysis, literature reviews, empirical data collection (quantitative and qualitative, data modelling and analysis)

Action-led interventions

e.g. pilot projects, demonstrator projects, community engagement and knowledge-sharing initiatives, new demonstrator projects; innovative ways of working (such as policy development, harnessing of data and/or new technologies, co-design of solutions, etc); evaluation of current innovations.

The call is seeking all types of explorative approaches to address evidence gaps in the five ‘Innovation Challenge’ areas:
  • IC1: Incentivise wastewater recycling 
  • IC2: Behavioural interventions for SME water supply resilience  
  • IC3: Stories and storytelling to keep water on the agenda  
  • IC4: Envisage and facilitate a sustainable, effective, and equitable water system   
  • IC5: Developing nature-based water outcome markets – A focus on buyers and demand   

Examples of eligible costs are as follows:

  • Workshops/activities/events
  • Travel/subsistence for workshops and events
  • Costs of organising activities
  • Communication, advertising, printing and publications
  • Materials/equipment (see UKRI Funding Guide p. 29)
  • Staff costs required for specific elements of/running the project
  • Training costs

The following are not eligible:

  • Costs incurred prior to grant approval
  • Pre-existing activity (unless FORTH2O Commissioning Fund project activities add in significant new ways to this)
  • Core funding of ongoing operations
  • Projects solely focused on the development of a product or service
  • Individuals
  • Alcohol

Please see the INNOVATION CHALLENGES Commissioning Fund guidance document for full details. Applicants must fill in the online form below and include / upload a maximum of 7 attachments:

Case for support (Up to a max of 6 pages (docx, pdf)

  • Understanding Background and nature of the brief and challenge you wish to address
  • Detailed methodology and approach to deliver the project
  • Clear roles and activities for each Partner or stakeholder in the proposal
  • High level project plan and proposed timeline (e.g. Gantt chart) and approach to monitoring and evaluation
  • Approach to ethical research practices /consent /confidentiality /data protection
  • Where relevant, references should be included

Budget builder/calculator template (MS Excel file)

Justification of resources (Max 1 page)

Applicant CV(s) (Max 2 page CV/team member collated  in  one document)

Key Milestone Deliverables Table

Letters of support from partners (Max 1 page/partner, collated in one document)

Lead Applicant Organisation Company Letterhead and Bank Details

FORTH2O Website

The FORTH2O website will be the key source of information for the Commissioning Fund. Any news, including any changes in this Guidance, will be published here. Please make sure you are always using the most up-to-date version of the Guidance. An FAQ Page will also be provided on our website at
https://forth2o.ac.uk/commissioning-fund/.

Expression of Interest Form

We have a small team managing this fund and have organised information webinars to engage with those interested in the fund to answer generic questions. Unfortunately, we do not have the capacity to answer case by case questions on project proposals and are doing our best to give as much support as we can. Therefore, an online expression of interest form will be made available for use by those who would like to ask questions about particular topics/themes or the application process. We will seek to address as many of these queries as possible in our webinars and FAQs. The form is provided on the FORTH2O website at https://forth2o.ac.uk/commissioning-fund/.

Information Webinars

FORTH2O will also host subject specific webinars to help applicants develop their applications. To join, email us at forth2o@stir.ac.uk.

1. Thursday 27th Nov 2025 (14.00-15.00pm)
2. Monday 8th Dec 2025 (11:00 – 12:00am)

Apply now

Documents you will need:

Optimisation Challenges

Harnessing water resources productively and sustainably in the Forth Water Basin.

Find out more

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