GovWire

At the Defence and Security Accelerator (DASA), we have a very thorough process for deciding which proposals to fund. The below guidance sets out our full competition process including the guidance given to our assessors to assess proposals.

Competition process

The competition process is made up of 10 stages.

1. Competition opens

All competitions are launched on our Apply for funding page. If you are interested in submitting an idea for any competition, please Contact a DASA Innovation Partner to help you.

2. Proposal submission

The only way to submit a proposal to DASA is online via the DASA online submission service. Login or register for an account.

Some tips to help with your submission:

• before submitting your proposal, check the terms and conditions carefully to ensure that you agree with all of them. You may wish to check them with your commercial or legal department. Please read the Open Call terms and conditions here. The terms and conditions for a themed competition can be found within the competition document.

• draft your proposal offline to avoid losing material when submitting online

• be concise. Each assessor should be able to read, understand and assess your proposal within 1 hour and 30 minutes, unless otherwise stated in the competition document. Use the text boxes provided in the application form and look out for the word limits

• attachments are limited to .png, .jpg, or.jpeg files only. Please provide full answers on the (Desirable/Feasible/Viable) criteria for your Innovation in the boxes provided. Proposals received with Desirable/Feasible/Viable answers provided as attachments will be considered non-compliant and sifted out of the competition.

• only click submit when your proposal is complete. It is not possible to add any additional information to your proposal after it has been submitted

• submit your proposal well before the deadline in case you experience any technical problems. Deadlines will not be extended. If you are having problems submitting your proposal, email us prior to the deadline on accelerator@dstl.gov.uk or call 01980 950000 option 3 Monday to Friday 0900-1200 only)

3. Competition close

4. Pre sift

Once you have submitted your proposal, it will pass through an initial pre-sift process. At this stage, your proposal may be rejected if it:

• does not demonstrate impact for defence or security

• does not outline how it meets the scope of the competition

• is incomplete

• if the attachments have been used for additional text data over the stated word counts in Desirability, Feasibility, Viability and Additional Information

• is lacking technical information to allow technical assessment to take place

• does not demonstrate how the project can be completed in the timelines

• exceeds the funding limit or timescale stipulated

• does not demonstrate acceptance of or comply with DASA terms and conditions

• is not at the correct Technology Readiness Level (TRL) for the competition

• is a resubmission of a previous proposal and does not adhere to the resubmission guidelines

Further guidance on pre sift criteria is described in the online submission service for the specific competition and in the relevant competition document, accessible via the Apply for Funding page.

5. Assessment

After the initial sifting process, experts fromacross UK government will be assigned to assess your proposal. When people outside of UK Government are used for assessment, it will be under a non-disclosure agreement and details will be provided in advance in the relevant competition document.

During the assessment phase all proposals are assessed against the following criteria:

• desirable: strategic fit, end user support/pull (letters of support not required)

• feasible: technical credibility, innovation, risk, expertise of team/capability

• viable: costs and value for money, project delivery/plan

Further guidance on assessment criteria is listed below.

6. Moderation

After assessment, a moderator will compile an overview, pulling together comments to provide a collective outcome in the form of a Fund or No Fund recommendation against the proposal.

7. Challenge

Stakeholders/moderators are invited to challenge the Fund or No Fund recommendation made against each proposal. Challengers present their argument both in written form for circulation and at the decision conference.

8. Decision conference

At the decision conference, key stakeholders come together to discuss the recommendation. The moderator attends the decision conference to present the Fund or No Fund recommendation for the proposal and to defend the proposal against any challenges that may have been submitted. Challengers attend the decision conference to present their challenges in order to promote robust discussion prior to the Fund or No Fund decision being made. At the end of the decision conference, a decision is made against each proposal on whether to fund it. Innovators are not permitted to attend the Decision Conference.

9. Decision release

Youll be able to track the progress of your application on your dashboard. Youll be notified by email when weve made a decision on whether or not to fund your proposal.

If you are successful, our commercial team will be in touch shortly after the decision date to begin contracting. Once you are on contract, bothDASAstaff and a Technical Partner will support and advise you throughout the period of your project.

10. Feedback release

If you are unsuccessful, you will receive brief written feedback within a few weeks of the applicable decision date. Feedback will be made available to you via email. Feedback is prepared by the proposal moderator, and is based on comments from all assessors and discussions at the decision conference. The feedback will give the main reasons why your proposal was unsuccessful.

Please note that every DASA competition has a finite financial limit which affects the number of bids we can fund. Where a proposal meets the fundable requirements for a competition, but is not funded, DASA will continue to seek funding from partners across government and shall consider your proposal fundable for 12 months from the date of the decision release. We will share the abstract, Proposal Value Proposition Statement (PVPS) and title of your proposal with any other UK government departments that may express an interest in funding the proposal through DASA, in accordance with the competition document. If a budget holder within the MOD wishes to read the full proposal to decide if they will fund it, we will share it with them under these circumstances. If it is within 60 days of the original NOT FUNDED decision release date, we will share the full proposal with them without seeking your permission. If it is over 60 days since the original NOT FUNDED decision we will seek your permission before sharing the full proposal with them.

For other potential funders, we wi

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