PropTech Innovation Challenge
Geovation, in collaboration with the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government (MHCLG) Digital Planning Programme, is excited to announce the launch of a £1.2 million PropTech Innovation Challenge to help accelerate the delivery of 1.5 million homes. We expect applicants to deliver solutions at speed, at scale and through deep collaboration with local government, industry stakeholders and policy teams.
Through this new initiative, Geovation will act as a strategic partner of MHCLG to broaden the scope of the Digital Planning Programme’s current PropTech Innovation Fund. The initiative will identify challenges in housing delivery that could benefit from innovative technology and fund creative solutions to overcome these barriers. This will directly support the UK government’s target to build 1.5 million homes in England during this Parliament. The challenge aims to leverage and accelerate PropTech adoption, helping to evolve the market and foster a new supply-side ecosystem for the sector.
The PropTech Innovation Challenge intends to promote and prioritise co-design with industry and across government to ensure solutions meet user needs and can be sustained in the long term.
Founded in 2021, the PropTech Innovation Fund is the UK government’s largest PropTech programme, so far successfully delivering 114 pilot projects across 77 local planning authorities (LPAs), in partnership with more than 50 PropTech companies. It was set up to accelerate the adoption of digital tools and solutions, and has revolutionised processes such as community engagement, 3D mapping and digital twins, biodiversity net gain, cross-district planning and site assessment. To date, the fund has facilitated LPAs to work at pace and scale with industry, harnessing the UK’s thriving PropTech sector.
The focus of this new PropTech Innovation Challenge is to test and validate how PropTech can serve as a catalyst in supporting the government’s home-building target through digital and scalable solutions.
In the coming weeks we will be undertaking market and policy engagement to formulate 5 problem statements. They will be available to companies having registered their interest.
Description
Geovation, in collaboration with the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government Digital Planning Programme, has launched a £1.2 million PropTech Innovation Challenge to modernise England’s planning system and enhance built environment processes. This initiative aims to accelerate the adoption of digital tools and solutions, supporting the UK government’s ambition to deliver 1.5 million homes in England through scalable and efficient methods this Parliament. The challenge will encourage collaboration with local authorities, streamline planning decisions, and showcase innovative PropTech solutions. Open for a 12-month programme, it will fund up to twelve projects, fostering greater industry collaboration and sustainable development. We’ve uncovered data availability, accessibility and quality as one of the main challenges in this space, and therefore we are expecting PropTech companies to leverage, extend and build on the data and standards created as part of the Planning data platform.
Winning proposals will be able to deliver solutions to clear business needs to ensure longevity and growth.
Co-design with industry, academia, developers and government is key, and user led product development is a necessity.
Process
Project size
Up to 12 selected projects to share £1.2m.
Funding type
100% funding based on project deliverables.
Who can apply
Only companies registered in the UK can apply.
There is no restriction on the size, scale and remit for successful companies.
We welcome and encourage joint applications with local planning authorities.
Your company must have experience collaborating with multiple stakeholders and with an iterative approach to product development, guided by user insights.
Outcomes
The overall aims of the challenge are to:
- Create scalable solutions alongside local government that deliver real time housing gains, testing on live sites and housing delivery environments
- Accelerate market adoption of PropTech to support better informed decision making at speed, streamline planning processes and accelerate the delivery of new homes
- Support delivery of digital planning objectives to build the foundations for a modern, 21st century planning system.
- Support investment in advanced technologies that enable easier access to data and support greater interoperability across the industry.
- Demonstrate the case for change and the need for accelerated market adoption of PropTech, to inform a wider digital agenda and policy strategies.
- Increase technology market capacity and confidence to respond to key housing and land challenges and opportunities.
Register Your Interest
If you are interested in applying for this challenge, please fill out our pre-application form below. You will be contacted and invited to fill out a full application once these are open.
Introducing the PropTech Innovation Challenge webinar
Catch up on this information session designed to guide interested companies in registering their interest at the first stage of the process, and gain a better understanding of the programme’s objectives, expectations, stages, and eligibility.
View the presentation deck shared during this session.
