Organisations can apply for a share of £1.25 million, including VAT, to develop a solution to improve the management of housing stock, which leads to improved health outcomes.

• Competition opens: Monday 1 April 2019
• Registration closes: Wednesday 8 May 2019 12:00pm

Leeds city council and city of York council are committed to providing housing of the right quality, type, tenure and affordability. The councils understand that good quality housing has associated health and wellbeing benefits. Through cyclical maintenance and investment programmes they ensure their housing stock meets the needs of tenants.

It can be difficult to identify lifestyle or environmental issues within properties that might have a detrimental effect on a tenant’s health and wellbeing. The councils want to know if new technological solutions can help effectively monitor environmental conditions within housing stock and provide information to tenants. This could help influence behaviour change and improve their health and wellbeing.

Successful applicants must be prepared to spend time in Leeds and York working with local authorities and tenants.

This is phase 1 of a 2-phase competition. Phase 2 is dependent on the success of this phase

The funder expect projects in phase 1 to range in size up to total costs of £50,000 including VAT. TheyYou should consider the variety of housing types in Leeds and York, including high rise tower blocks, and the varying needs and demographic of tenants. It is important that your solution can be deployed in all properties and be understood and taken advantage of by all residents.

The solution you propose must:

•  help the councils improve how they monitor environmental factors and schedule maintenance
•  provide exception reporting and predictive modelling
• improve the health and wellbeing of council tenants
• enable tenants to make environmental and lifestyle changes to improve the condition of their home and their own health and wellbeing
• be non-intrusive

You should consider:

• how Internet of Things (IOT) technology might be used
•  how health referrals might trigger proactive housing interventions and how could this be achieved in a system that is not currently joined up
• how we can understand which behaviour patterns lead to requests for property maintenance or create health conditions, and act on this insight
• whether making users aware of the impact of their actions results in behaviour change
• what an end to end solution which joins up and integrates with existing systems would look like

You should be aware of:

• the Local Digital Declaration
•  the Digital Service Standard
• the Technology Code of Practice

Your application must have at least 50% of its contract value attributed directly and exclusively to research and development (R&D) services. R&D can cover solution exploration and design. It can also include prototyping and field-testing the product or service.

R&D does not include:

• commercial development activities such as quantity production
•  supply to establish commercial viability or to recover R&D costs
• integration, customisation or incremental adaptations and improvements to existing products or processes expect to fund up to 5 projects.

To apply you must:

• read the guidance and application questions for this competition https://apply-for-innovation-funding.service.gov.uk/competition/336/overview#supporting-information
• register online , completing a separate registration for each proposal submitted
• read the invitation to tender, which will be available for you to download from our secure site after registration
• attend the briefing event for potential applicants
• complete and upload your online application for phase 1, including a separate form for each innovation proposed

If you would like to receive the slides and answers to questions raised during the briefing event please email smartleeds@leeds.gov.uk.