Device-Enhanced Community Healthcare

The Tay Health Tech ‘Collaborative Fund’ is now open for applications!

The Device-Enhanced Community Healthcare fund is for up to £100,000 per application, for up to 12 months activity. We expect to fund up to three projects.

We strongly advise you to contact Tay Health Tech before completing the application form, to ensure your project idea is eligible.

Opening date	28 January 2026
Closing date	31 March 2026
Maximum funding per project	£100,000
Project duration	Up to 12 months

Scope

Applications are invited for projects that are about:

• Medical technology or medical devices in areas not currently available through NHS Tayside.
• Improving the efficiency of services or processes in Tayside: these can be services or processes that are conducted or used in the community or that are conducted in the hospital reducing the need, or frequency of the need for patients to visit the hospital.
• Introducing new or improved products that slow or prevent the progression of disease.
• Introducing new or improved products that move testing or monitoring of conditions from the hospital to the community or home, for example collection of samples or data in the home or community that are subsequently sent for analysis or POCT.
• Reducing reliance on hospitals by bringing healthcare to the community or patients’ home.
• Devices that provide healthcare in the community, whether local services or in the home.

Devices should fall under one or more of the Tay Health Tech Collaborative Fund themes:

• At home testing
• Hospital at Home
• Rehabilitation and Prehabilitation
• Prevention & Prognosis
• Youth health
• Substance Use
• Mental Health

Eligibility

• Projects must describe and quantify how the product or service being developed will positively impact Tayside; this can include economic impact, impact on healthcare outcomes for patients, impact on efficiency of healthcare staff and NHS services.
• Projects must be based on engineering and physical sciences research (that falls under the EPSRC remit), that are considered medical devices or medical technology.
• Can include Software as a Medical Device, and AI as a Medical Device.
• The lead organisation must be eligible for EPSRC funding, i.e. higher education providers, research institutes, public sector research establishments, NHS bodies, independent research organisations, Catapult centres.
• Projects must have a partner in, or have a base in, Tayside.
• Projects must bring in new knowledge and expertise to realise impacts in Tayside, by including input from a organisation outwith the current Tay Health Tech partnership (Universities of Dundee, Glasgow, St Andrews, Heriot-Watt University, Edinburgh Napier University and NHS Tayside).
• Projects need to be a minimum of EPSRC’s definition of TRL 4 – Late proof of concept demonstrated in real-life conditions (or simulated real-life conditions).
• Partners can include higher education, further education, industry, civic bodies, health and social care organisations and third sector organisations.

Eligible costs (all at 100% funded)

• Salary costs for academic research non-tenured staff, i.e. Directly Incurred.
• NHS Tayside salary costs for sessions dedicated to the project, or backfill.
• Consumables.
• Travel, accommodation and subsistence (which must be booked and spent in line with your organisation’s policies).
• Public and patient involvement and engagement activities.
• Commissioning expert consultants to undertake specialist tasks e.g. market analysis, use of SHARE, health economists.
• Projects can also apply for “Access to Facilities” costs in addition to this Device-Enhanced Community Healthcare fund; please see “Access to Facilities Fund”.

Ineligible costs

• Academic members of staff salary, NHS Consultant salary (i.e. Directly Allocated)
• External partner (company) salaries
• Overhead costs
• New, fundamental research
• Academic publication costs
• Conference fees
• IP and patent costs, including but not limited to registering, maintaining and supporting patents and property rights
• PhD or studentship funding
• Standard desktop computing
• Contributions to KTPs (Knowledge Transfer Partnerships)
• Contributions towards the cost of purchasing equipment with a value over £10,000.

Application Review

Eligible applications will be scored and selected by the Tay Health Tech Steering Board based on:

• Impact on Tayside, including economic
• Tayside’s healthcare need (including the care pathway)
• Value for money
• Commercial potential and sustainability
• Patient & Public Involvement & Engagement (PPIE)
• Equality, Diversity & Inclusion (EDI) approach

Requirements

Project partners must enter into a Collaboration Agreement which includes IPR ownership, commercialisation lead, freedom to use Background IP to conduct the project, ownership of Foreground IP, and terms for commercialising joint IP.

The lead organisation is required to undertake due diligence on project partners and evidence this within the application. You may wish to review the UKRI guidance on Trusted Research.

Ethics approval

It is the responsibility of the Project Lead to ensure that all necessary research governance reviews and approvals are obtained. Confirmation of these approvals must be emailed by either the Awardee or the Lead Investigator to the Tay Health Tech Project Manager before any related research activities can begin. Please bear this in mind as the projects must be completed by 31 August 2027 and ethical approval can add delays to start dates.

Key dates

Call opens:                             28 January 2026

Call closes:                            31 March 2026

Awarded:                                end April 2026

Start:                                        June – July 2026

Project ends/funds spent: 31 Jul 2027

Project reporting submitted: 31 August 2027