Application Process 
Application Process
The Advantage Proof of Concept Grant Fund has to deal with more than 50 enquiries per month and may need to scrutinise more than 25 applications per month. To do this properly is very demanding; therefore, we have developed a process to deal with applications as efficiently and as fairly as possible. This process is as transparent as we are able to make it and we have described it below for your benefit. Before you make an application to the Fund, you might want to review our contractual terms and conditions, [PDF, 199 kB].
Enquiry
The Advantage Proof of Concept Grant Fund has four satellite offices based in Coventry, Malvern, Stafford and Wolverhampton. Ordinarily we would expect companies to contact one of these offices to lodge their interest.
Once we have logged your enquiry, one of our representatives will contact you to discuss in some detail your proposed project. We are keen that we do not waste your time so we will check some basic eligibility criteria during that conversation and make sure that the project fits within the scope of the Fund.
If your project appears to be suitable for the Fund, we will send you an Outline Application Form to fill in.
The Outline Application Form
The Outline Application is designed to capture the basic information we need to begin due diligence on your project and to ensure that any concerns regarding the eligibility of an application early on. The Outline Application Form is about four pages long and should ordinarily take no more than an hour to complete.
If you have any queries about the Outline Application, you should contact the Advantage Proof of Concept Grant Fund Manager, whose details are on the form.
When you are happy with your Outline Application, you should send it to the Advantage Proof of Concept Grant Fund at The Venture Centre, Sir William Lyons Road, Coventry, CV4 7EZ.
The Full Application Form
We will undertake some basic due diligence and assessment of your outline application form and if it meets all of our criteria, we will ask you to fill in a Full Application Form. This is a more significant document and collects detailed information about your application.
If you are asked to complete a Full Application, we are reasonably confident that your application will be successful. Obviously, there are no guarantees but we expect 85% or more Full Applications to be awarded grants. At this stage, we want to maximise the quality of your application, therefore we will supply a consultant to spend about half a day with you to assist in designing the project and completing the Form.
Once you are happy with the Full Application Form, you should send it along with all requested supporting documents back to the Fund.
Grant Award Panel
If your Full Application successfully passes the internal evaluations it will then be forwarded on to our external grant award panel for the final decision to approve or decline the projects request for a grant.
By submitting an enquiry to the Advantage Proof of Concept Grant Fund, you are authorising access to this information for the consortium members of the Fund, (UWSP Concepts Limited, Connect Midlands, Malvern Hills Science Park, University of Wolverhampton and Staffordshire BIC), Advantage West Midlands, The European Regional Development Fund and their agents.
You authorise agents and offices of the Advantage Proof of Concept Grant Fund to make enquiries and due diligence on your enterprise and project as they consider necessary to access the viability of your application.
All agents and offices of the Advantage Proof of Concept Grant Fund including relevant staff in UWSP Concepts Limited, Malvern Hills Science Park, Staffordshire BIC, Connect Midlands and University of Wolverhampton are bound under confidentiality agreements. Any information submitted will be treated as commercial in confidence in so far as the fund is able whilst undertaking reasonable due diligence to assess the viability of the application.