Home Office and Border Control Force

What's the challenge?

The Home Office and Border Control Force continually promotes, invests in and deploys innovative detection technologies at the UK border. These counter the evolving threats of the modern world and protect revenue on imported goods, which is a strategic priority of the UK government.

This is a Small Business Research Initiative (SBRI) competition, with funding provided by the GovTech Catalyst. The aim is to fund innovative proposals for the detection and identification of illicit postal goods at UK borders.

Challenge details

For phase one of the competition, organisations can apply for a share of £250,000 (including VAT) to run a feasibility study, to develop innovative solutions for deployment in the international postal and fast parcel border environment.

The overall programme will be delivered in two phases. A decision to proceed with phase two will depend on the outcomes from phase one. Only successful applicants from phase one will be able to apply to take part in phase two.

Your application must propose adaptive and non-disruptive products that comply with two main objectives:

• Improve the ability to detect illicit goods passing through postal and fast parcel border facilities
• Have no effect on the flow of goods

Any innovation proposal must address one or more of these ‘specific challenge’ areas, and develop a detection solution that is:

• More automated - to reduce physical intervention in the scanning process
• Able to handle larger volumes - to increase how much we can scan in a given period
• Flexible - so the process is more dynamic and adaptable

This is a Small Business Research Initiative (SBRI) competition and the closing date is Wednesday 16 January 2019 at 12:00pm.