The provision of wrap around consultancy to support SMEs participating in the Humber and York & North Yorkshire ERDF Funded SparkFund programme. We are seeking responses to this tender which provide costs for short term interventions with SparkFund Beneficiary SMEs in units of whole days on a pro-rata basis. Services will be called off in whole or part days, specifically quarter and half days, and will relate to specific needs of businesses as defined within the mini-competitions

SparkFund is a business support and grant programme which is available to Small & Medium Sized Enterprises (SMEs) located in either the Humber or York & North Yorkshire Local Enterprise Partnership (LEP) areas. The total value of the programme is £15.1m and it is in receipt of £8.4m of ERDF grant funding.

SparkFund is the brand name for a programme made up of three discreet strands of support, these are:

Innovation Vouchers: to enable beneficiary SMEs to secure specialist innovation support (up to £17,500 maximum grant value). Such support will encourage and stimulate demand from SMEs to engage in innovation activity and access the expertise on offer from the knowledge base. It will help build the innovation capacity of SMEs by supporting proof of market and technical feasibility studies, early stage proof of concept and prototyping work as well as intellectual property protection.

Grants for Research & Development: to enable beneficiary SMEs to secure specialist innovation support (up to £44,300 maximum grant value). Such support will encourage and stimulate demand from SMEs to engage in innovation activity and access the expertise on offer from the knowledge base. It will help build the innovation capacity of SMEs by supporting proof of market and technical feasibility studies, early stage proof of concept and prototyping work as well as intellectual property protection.

Low Carbon Grants for Research & Development: to enable beneficiary SMEs to secure specialist innovation support (up to £42,250 maximum grant value). This activity will encourage and stimulate demand from SMEs to engage in low carbon innovation activity and access the expertise on offer from the knowledge base. It will help build the innovation capacity of SMEs by supporting proof of market and technical feasibility studies, early stage proof of concept and prototyping work as well as intellectual property protection.

We are seeking responses to this tender which provide costs for short term interventions with SparkFund Beneficiary SMEs in units of whole days on a pro-rata basis. Services will be called off in whole or part days, specifically quarter and half days, and will relate to specific needs of businesses as defined within the mini-competitions