Design Foundations: Repairability competition

Innovate UK, part of UK Research and Innovation, will invest up to £2 million in innovation projects that use design methods

Eligible organisations can apply for funding to use people centred and systemic design methods to:

• improve existing innovative ideas
• generate new ideas in response to a known need or opportunity
• identify new opportunities to innovate and plan how to respond to them

The aim of this competition is to help businesses adopt people-centric and systemic design principles to lay the foundations for innovative ideas with the potential to deliver significant benefits. These can be ideas for new or significantly improved products, services, places, or business models.

The focus of this competition is repairability, or Design for Repair, which is a design philosophy that aims to make products and services more easily repairable.

Your proposal must fall within one or more of the following categories:

• modularity and accessibility
• standardisation and compatibility
• design for durability
• extended lifecycles and lifecycle assessment
• eco-design and circularity
• design for resilience

In all cases, projects must explore opportunities and ideas from the perspective of the people who will be involved with or affected by them.

Find out more about the scope of the Design Foundations: Repairability competition.

Applicants are encouraged to work with design experts to get the best results and to develop their own understanding and capabilities, even if they have not previously used such design processes or expertise.

First published 3 November 2023