Access to Facilities Fund

The Tay Health Tech Access to Facilities fund has up to £200,000 to support multiple projects to access University of Dundee and/or Heriot-Watt University research and lab facilities.

This will be a rolling call, we expect to fund multiple projects. All projects must be finished by 31 July 2027.

Opening date	23 March 2026
Closing date	Until funding runs out

Project Scope

Applications are invited for projects that are about:

• Medical technology or medical devices (including software as a medical device, or software for a medical intended use) that meets an unmet need within 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.

Projects should fall under one or more of our themes:

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

University of Dundee (UoD) facilities available:

• Prototypes for lab testing through the Medical Device Manufacturing Centre (contact Andrew Brown (Technology Specialist) for review of relevant manufacturing equipment)
• Requests to the Health Informatics Centre (HIC)
• Requests to SHARE (the Scottish Health Research Register & BioBank)
• Image Guided Therapy Research Facility (IGTRF) for the use of Thiel cadavers
• Clinical Research Imaging Facility (CRIF)

If you are looking for a facility which is not available here please get in touch to see if this is also something we can provide.

Heriot-Watt University (HWU) facilities available

Access to the Medical Device Manufacturing Centre (MDMC) for:

• Prototype production for lab testing, injection moulding, testing, imaging and analysis
• Accelerated ageing facilities
• Desk studies on optimising manufacturing and sustainable material selection

Please contact mdmc@hw.ac.uk to review relevant manufacturing equipment available.

We have put together a Facilities Guide, providing an overview of some of the facilities available across Tayside that you may find helpful. The guide is not exhaustive! If there is a facility not listed that you are interested in using, please get in touch with Tay Health Tech.

Eligibility

• External requests incoming to UoD / HWU from academia or industry.
• Internal requests (UoD / HWU) for new projects.
• Internal requests (UoD / HWU) for existing projects, e.g. to cover costs that were not envisaged at the stage of application and result from a pivot or identification of additional application of the technology.

Eligible Costs

• Facility costs
• Consumables
• Technician time in the facilities

For projects utilising Dundee facilities, costing will be conducted by Tay Med Connect. We strongly advise you to contact Tay Med Connect as soon as possible to gather the information needed for your application. They will also be able to help you to understand the timelines involved if you wish to partner with NHS Tayside.

Ineligible costs

• Academic member of staff salary, NHS Consultant salary (i.e. Directly Allocated)
• External partner 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 reviewed by the Tay Health Tech core team and selected projects will be presented for information to the Tay Health Tech Steering Board. Decisions will be made based on:

• Impact on Tayside
• Healthcare need (including the care pathway)
• Value for money
• Commercial potential and sustainability

How to apply

Please engage directly with the facility you wish to use, to get a quote of the cost.
Once you have costing information, apply to us to cover the cost, using the application form below.

If successful, the facility will invoice Tay Health Tech directly.