Clean Maritime Demonstration Competition 7 Feasibility Studies: Historical Funding Guide

The Clean Maritime Demonstration Competition 7 (CMDC7) feasibility studies strand was a closed Innovate UK grant competition funded by the Department for Transport. The official UKRI opportunity page records the call as closed. Its final closing date was 15 July 2026 at 11:00am UK time. The official listings do not announce a later CMDC8 feasibility round or another replacement deadline, so this page is a historical reference rather than an invitation to apply.

The call formed one of three CMDC7 strands alongside deployment trials and pre-deployment trials. Feasibility work sat at the early evidence stage: applicants were expected to investigate whether an innovative clean maritime technology, skills initiative, or enabling system could become a credible future demonstration. The competition was not a general maritime research fund and it was not a route to pay for a sea trial during the funded project. It was designed for primarily desk-based technical and economic studies that could make a later deployment decision more informed.

At a glance

The £121 million figure applied to the competition as a whole, not to each feasibility project. The official IFS page set the eligible cost range for this strand at £100,000 to £1 million. It also stated that funding was a grant and that commercial or economic work could receive up to 70% of eligible costs for a micro or small organisation, up to 60% for a medium-sized organisation, or up to 50% for a large organisation. The applicant had to finance the balance.

Research organisations undertaking non-economic activity could share up to 50% of total eligible project costs. Within that share, an RTO, charity, not-for-profit organisation, public-sector organisation, or research organisation could receive up to 100% of its eligible costs. Academic institutions could claim up to 80% of full economic costs under the stated rules. These rates were not a promise of a fixed award: projects still had to justify costs, show value for money, and pass eligibility and assessment.

What the feasibility strand was intended to fund

The official definition was deliberately narrower than “research about shipping.” A qualifying project had to undertake a primarily desk-based technical and economic feasibility study. The work had to be associated with the development and future real-world demonstration of innovative technology for on-vessel use, maritime infrastructure use, clean maritime skills, or a combination of those areas.

The study could examine an engineering concept, a route to deployment, a supply chain, a green shipping corridor, or workforce infrastructure. It could collect data from existing technology deployments, but it could not allocate substantial costs to developing and testing technology as part of the feasibility project. The guidance expressly said that a feasibility project must not plan to test technologies in the water. A proposal intended to deploy a solution in an operational environment belonged in the deployment-trials strand. A proposal involving substantial testing without deployment belonged in the pre-deployment-trials strand.

The expected output was a decision-ready evidence package. Depending on the proposal, that could include a technical feasibility report, system or vessel integration study, energy and emissions model, regulatory pathway, safety and risk analysis, supply-chain plan, commercial assessment, stakeholder evidence, and a detailed plan for a future operational demonstration. The team needed to show how the study would remove barriers rather than simply describe an attractive technology.

The official requirements also expected a meaningful feasibility study before March 2028 and a future deployment underpinned by December 2029. That future deployment was not the funded activity in this strand; it was the downstream use case that gave the feasibility work its purpose. Applicants had to explain how the study would lead to a technology, route-to-market, or supply-chain innovation with the potential to reduce well-to-wake greenhouse-gas emissions from maritime activity.

Eligibility and consortium rules

This was a collaboration-only competition. The lead organisation had to be a UK-registered business of any size. A business could lead a project only with other UK-registered organisations in the consortium. Academic institutions could participate, but they could not lead or work alone.

The eligible funded project-team categories for collaborators were UK-registered:

• businesses of any size;
• academic institutions;
• charities;
• not-for-profit organisations;
• public-sector organisations; and
• research and technology organisations.

At least one other organisation had to apply for funding alongside the lead. The application had to explain why the collaboration was needed and how the team was structured. No one partner could account for more than 70% of the total eligible project costs. Each partner had to be invited into the IFS application by the lead, accept the invitation, enter its own project costs, and complete its own project-impact questions.

Non-funded partners were permitted. Their costs were covered from their own resources, and they could include UK, European Union, or other non-UK organisations. That did not remove the UK requirements for funded organisations: funded work had to be carried out in the UK, and the organisation had to intend to exploit the project results from or in the UK. Subcontractors were allowed, but they had to be selected through the organisation’s usual procurement process. Overseas subcontracting required a specific case explaining why UK contractors could not be used; a lower price alone was not sufficient.

The application-count rule also mattered. A business could lead only one application across the three CMDC7 strands and could also lead one application in the Zero Emission Vessels and Infrastructure 2 competition. If it led an application, it could be a collaborator or subcontractor in two further applications across CMDC7 and ZEVI 2. A business that led none could collaborate or subcontract in any number of applications across those competitions. Other eligible organisations could collaborate on any number of applications, subject to demonstrating that they had the resources to deliver them.

Scope and examples of suitable work

The call focused on clean maritime technology and skills. The official themes included zero and near-zero greenhouse-gas fuel systems such as ammonia or hydrogen; retrofitting clean technology to existing vessels; fishing and inland-waterway vessels; and projects combining vessel or infrastructure technology with smart shipping.

Vessel technology examples included propulsion and auxiliary engines, batteries, fuel cells, low-carbon energy storage and management, wind propulsion, shore-power connections, alternative-fuel bunkering interfaces, power electronics, air-pollution controls, methane and nitrous-oxide reduction, type approval of novel equipment, onboard carbon capture and storage, and energy-efficiency systems such as hull improvements, waste-heat recovery, propeller and rudder flow conditioning, air lubrication, and efficient auxiliary systems.

Infrastructure examples included shoreside storage and bunkering, electric-vessel charging, novel shore-power systems, port-based renewable generation, low- or near-zero-emission fuel production at ports, zero-emission freight-handling assets, offshore infrastructure changes needed by clean vessels, and reception or storage of captured carbon. Clean maritime training projects had to address vocational or technical training infrastructure for the design, manufacture, maintenance, or operation of clean maritime technology.

Smart shipping, digital, and autonomous proposals had to show a clear greenhouse-gas reduction contribution. They could cover maintenance and inspection, port operations, vessel design optimisation, safety and skills, vessel operations, route planning, multimodal interaction, or assurance systems. Data, artificial intelligence, automated systems, connectivity, positioning and timing, quantum computing, sensing, monitoring, or digital twins had to be a core part of the smart-shipping work rather than a decorative feature.

The official exclusions were equally important. The competition did not fund work focused only on improving current conventional fossil-fuel efficiency, marine conservation and ecology, personal watercraft, submarines or submersible vessels, military applications, synthetic fuels outside the stated low- or near-zero-emission methanol, ammonia, and hydrogen exception, duplicate existing innovation, or non-methanol biofuels except as a pilot or secondary fuel in a vessel predominantly powered by methanol, ammonia, or hydrogen. Proposals covered by existing commercial agreements were also excluded.

What a strong feasibility proposal needed to prove

A credible team would begin with a specific barrier to future maritime adoption. The barrier might be vessel integration, energy supply, safe fuel handling, port connection capacity, classification, regulation, maintenance, data access, training, commercial demand, or cost. The study should then set out the evidence required to decide whether that barrier could be overcome.

The proposal needed at least one representative end user, such as a vessel operator, port, or harbour authority. That end user had to show clear commitment to the project. A letter of support with no practical role would be weak evidence; a named operator supplying operational constraints, reviewing assumptions, and shaping the future demonstration case would be much more useful.

The work also needed a defensible emissions method. Applicants had to quantify the potential reduction in well-to-wake greenhouse-gas emissions and consider air-pollution risks or other environmental impacts where relevant. This meant identifying the baseline, the operating assumptions, the energy source, the likely duty cycle, and the uncertainty around future deployment. A study that only claimed “lower emissions” without a comparison method would not meet the spirit of the call.

Regulation and safety belonged in the feasibility work from the start. Projects involving vessels had to understand applicable certification and engage with the Maritime and Coastguard Agency during the project. A future demonstration plan needed to consider planning permissions, current and future regulation, classification, safety, incident response, maintenance, new partners, and the resources needed to operate in a real setting. This was particularly important for alternative fuels, shore power, onboard carbon capture, and any system that changed a vessel’s operating profile.

The commercial case needed equal attention. The study had to develop evidence about likely applications, market segments, exploitation, barriers to adoption, and the potential value to the UK. Applicants had to explain how any project-generated intellectual property would be anchored in the UK and used for the benefit of the UK supply chain and wider economy. The desired endpoint was a costed, technically credible plan for a later operational demonstration, not a research report with no owner or next decision.

Application process used for the closed call

Applications were submitted through the Innovation Funding Service. The lead first needed to decide which organisations would work on the project and invite partners into the application. The team then entered the project title, proposed start date, duration, research category, summary, public description, and scope explanation. The application had four broad parts: project details, application questions, finances, and supporting information.

The application questions covered the applicant location, animal testing, permits and licences, international collaboration, export controls, trusted research and innovation, project theme, end users, need or challenge, approach and innovation, environmental impact, team and resources, market awareness, outcomes and route to market, jobs and investment, wider impacts, project management, risks, knowledge sharing, added value, and costs and value for money. All questions had to be answered. The IFS guidance warned applicants not to include website addresses or links in their answers because doing so could make the application ineligible.

Several questions required evidence appendices. These were PDF files with size and page limits, including supporting material for the end-user case, technical approach, environmental impact, team and resources, jobs and investment, project management, risks, and costs. A project plan or Gantt chart and a risk register were specifically important supporting documents. Each partner had to complete its assigned sections, enter its own costs, and accept the terms and conditions.

Before submission, the lead was responsible for checking that the information was correct, that the proposal met the eligibility and scope rules, that all sections were marked complete, and that all partners had finished their assigned work. The lead could reopen a submitted application before the deadline, but it had to be resubmitted before the closing time. That workflow is now historical because the official opportunity is closed; a future clean-maritime applicant should use the current IFS competition page and current Innovate UK guidance rather than assuming CMDC7 rules remain unchanged.

Historical status and official sources

The retained deadline = '2026-07-15' is the real closing date of the completed CMDC7 feasibility-studies cycle. historicalReference = true tells the site that the date belongs to an archive entry and should not be presented as a live application deadline. There is no basis in the official listings for changing the field to rolling, inventing a later CMDC8 date, or describing the programme as continuously open.

The official sources used for this record are the UKRI opportunity page and the Innovation Funding Service competition overview. The UKRI page identifies Innovate UK as the funder, records the closed status, and gives the 15 July 2026 closing date. The IFS page provides the detailed project size, funding, eligibility, scope, timeline, and application requirements for the completed round.