18 May 2020

£1.2m R&D Funding Awarded to Fashion SMEs

The Companies

We have awarded over £1.2 million to 10 of the UK fashion industry’s most innovative and sustainable brands.

From over 80 applications, 13 were shortlisted and provided with one-to-one mentoring, business workshops and training to help develop their initial concepts into fully fledged business plans.

The shortlisted businesses then had to pitch their idea to a panel of industry and academic experts – with just ten making the final cut. 

Awards totalling over £1.2m will be made to: Ananas Anam, Anna Glover, AWAYTOMARS, Blackhorse Lane Ateliers, Chip[S] Board, Doppelhaus, Elvis & Kresse, Segura, Tengri and Tibor.

Individual R&D projects are listed elsewhere on this website.

 

The Support

In addition, each recipient will receive a comprehensive package of support. This includes mentoring from leading academics across the partnership, hands-on specialist creative and technical support. Besides this, there is ongoing project management and strategic business support from across the BFTT team.  

The awarded projects cover a range of sub-sectors and R&D areas, including:

  • bio-material development to non-woven textiles
  • a global design crowdsourcing platform
  • sustainable surface finishing processes
  • on-shoring of state-of-the-art sustainable manufacturing
  • novel digital solutions to increase transparency and improve sustainability in the sector

The projects, which all focus on a specific R&D challenge, will launch in Spring 2020. They will be running for 12-18 months depending on the complexity of the proposition. 

 

The Programme

This award was made within the BFTT SME R&D Programme, which is hosted by the University of the Arts London (UAL), in partnership with some of the UK’s leading universities.

The programme consists of a bespoke support package designed to enable small and medium enterprises from across the fashion, textiles and technology sector, access to expertise and resources to develop the next generation of sustainability-driven products, services and experiences.

Over 2020/21 we will be launching further funding support of a similar value. 

Read the press release for further information.