About the Feasibility Studies

About the Technology Strategy Board's Feasibility Studies for Digital Britain competition.

In January 2010, 89 small and medium sized businesses were successful in receiving funding from the Digital Britain feasibility studies competition enabling them to financially de-risk the initial steps of product development that they otherwise would not have undertaken.

The feasibility studies needed to match one or more of the priority areas below and were required to align closely with the Technology Strategy Board's Digital Britain strategy in the respective areas.

• Access to public services and public services data
• Enabling technologies for the internet
• Applications and services for a Digital Britain
• The deployment and operation of digital infrastructure

It all started back in September 2009 when the Technology Strategy Board ran a competition to invest in feasibility studies lasting up to 3 months and costing no more than £33,000 in total and with the Technology Strategy Board funding up to 75% of this cost.

The purpose was to stimulate innovation across the Technology Strategy Board's technology areas to help ensure that UK businesses are well-equipped to respond to the challenges presented by the current economic conditions.

The feasibility studies supported under this competition may develop into submissions to a follow-on competition, which is planned for later in 2010. This will have a budget of around £25m for collaborative R&D projects and is likely to be open to all types of organisation. Further details will be available in the spring.

 The competition focused on feasibility studies:

• in technology areas closely aligned with the prioritised pillars of the Technology Strategy Board's various technology strategies
• that contain an element of technology innovation
• that are both led and undertaken by small and micro companies individually or in partnership, and where the single company or collaborative partners spend most of the funding in-house.

The original completion flyer for the Digital Britain feasibility studies can be found here.

The Technology Strategy Board also ran a feasibility studies competition under its 'technology inspired' strategy. Visit here if you are interested in attending the Collaboration Nation event focused on technology innovations in the following areas:

• Advanced Materials
• Biosciences
• Electronics, Photonics and Electrical Systems
• High Value Manufacturing
• Information and Communications Technology
• Nanotechnology