Canada-UK Critical Minerals

Fund details

Joint Canadian and UK projects must focus on innovative technologies that enable the development and commercialisation of circular solutions for critical minerals and their supply chains. The project focus should be on the minerals and not on the end application performance.

Your proposal must focus on one or more of the following five themes:

1) Enhanced Circularity in Critical Minerals – Battery Systems

For example:

• Improving recovery or efficiency of recovery of critical minerals from battery systems, for example, cobalt, nickel, lithium, and manganese, from black mass
• Improving recovery or efficiency of recovery of new critical mineral streams from battery waste, for example, graphite, silicon, phosphates

2) Enhanced Circularity in Critical Minerals – High-Performance Permanent Magnets (HPPM)

For example:

• Safe and economic identification, collection, sorting, separation, and dismantling of rare earth element (REE) containing end-of-life products
• Novel and sustainable routes for processing recovered REE materials

3) Sustainable Use of Critical Minerals – Processing & Manufacturing

For example:

• Novel manufacturing methods and processes across the value chain (from mine to end-product for use in battery systems or high-performance permanent magnet applications) to enhance the circularity and sustainability of critical minerals

4) Sustainable Use of Critical Minerals – Reduction in Use

For example:

• Novel approaches to reduce reliance on existing critical minerals
• Complete substitution of critical minerals and systems

5) Innovations in Environmental, Societal, and Governance (ESG) for Critical Minerals

For example:

• Life Cycle Analysis (LCA) and sustainability models for LCA of critical minerals and systems
• Measurement and accounting for embedded carbon, radioactivity and other environmental and societal impacts of REE
• Provenance, for example, material passports, digitization or traceability of critical minerals and systems

Eligibility

Your project must:

• have a grant funding request of no more than £400,000 allocated to UK organisations
• have a grant funding request of no more than CA $500,000 allocated to each eligible Canadian SME
• start by 1 September 2024
• end by 31 August 2026
• last between 12 and 24 months

Projects should have a balanced contribution of the total eligible project costs among the partners from the UK and Canada.

No one country or project partner can represent more than 70% of the total project cost.

The majority of the project work must be undertaken in the UK and Canada. There must be a “project lead” and this can be either an eligible UK or Canadian organisation. The project lead is responsible for managing the entire project.

As we are now a Ryan Company, companies with a Canadian branch or have operations within Canada can find funding opportunities through our partnership with Canada’s largest government funding application writers at Mentor Works, a Ryan Company. Meet with a member of our team for a free consultation meeting to find out what funding programs your business may be eligible for.