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The only way to submit a research proposal to the Centre for Defence Enterprise (CDE) is online.

The process is the same if you鈥檙e submitting a proposal to the enduring competition or a themed competition.

Get started

Select 鈥楽tart now鈥� to set up your initial account. If you already have an account, you can skip this and go straight to the 鈥楽ign in鈥� page.

Even if you had an account with CDE鈥檚 previous online submission portal (before November 2015), you鈥檒l need to set up a new account now. There are no longer multi-user accounts.

Dashboard

The dashboard is where registered users can review all their proposal submissions and track their progress. It鈥檚 also where you can create a new proposal.

Submit a new proposal

As you go through the sections below, you can complete a section, save it and return later. You can also review everything before you submit it to CDE.

Competition name

You鈥檒l need to tell us which of our themed competitions you鈥檙e entering. The competitions are then divided into specific challenges where we鈥檙e looking for responses.

You鈥檒l be asked to confirm you鈥檝e read and accept CDE terms and conditions.

Summary

We鈥檒l then ask you to briefly summarise your proposal before going into much more detail about what you鈥檙e going to do. The information you give us here makes sure we get the right assessors to look at your proposal.

Proposal details

This is where you can write in detail about what you鈥檙e proposing to do, why we should fund it and how you鈥檙e going to do it.

There鈥檚 guidance at each part of this stage to help you give the information assessors are looking for. You鈥檒l also be able to upload a selection of image files to illustrate your work and details of your project plan.

Finance and deliverables

This section鈥檚 designed so that you can divide the project up into a series of deliverables. You can ask for up to 6 staged payments assigned to some or all of the deliverables.

Please note that the final payment on successful completion of the project should be at least 20% of the total.

Review and submit

This last page is there to help you review your proposal before you submit. Once you submit the proposal, you can鈥檛 make any further changes.

How long should a proposal be?

We can鈥檛 give an exact word count, but for guidance, you should bear in mind that the assessor should be able to read, understand and assess your proposal within 1 hour.

After you submit a proposal

Once you submit your proposal, we鈥檒l assign our expert assessors to look through it and decide if it鈥檒l be funded.

We reserve the right to reject a proposal before assessment if the proposal doesn鈥檛 meet minimum requirements, as described in the guidance in the online submission service, such as being too long, having an obvious lack of scientific evidence or not providing any clear, meaningful deliverables or is a resubmission with no obvious changes to the original proposal. This is to ensure the best use of public money for assessing CDE proposals.

Every proposal you submit will have a status showing whether it鈥檚 been submitted, if it鈥檚 being assessed and ultimately whether it鈥檒l be funded or not.

As soon as a decision is made, you鈥檒l see the proposal status change to 鈥楩und鈥� or 鈥楴o Fund鈥� in your dashboard.

If you鈥檙e successful, our commercial team will be in touch to get contracting started. If you aren鈥檛 successful this time, we鈥檒l give you feedback to help you understand why. This process will normally take a matter of weeks but you can get the exact dates from the competition document.

After a fixed period of time, most of your submission will be deleted from our system. We do this to protect your intellectual property (IP). We must retain some information though.

Resubmission

Please don鈥檛 resubmit an idea that鈥檚 been unsuccessful in gaining CDE funding previously, unless we鈥檝e specifically encouraged a resubmission in our feedback to you.

If you are resubmitting an idea, you need to make it clear where you鈥檝e made changes to address the feedback provided.

If it鈥檚 not clear that you鈥檝e made changes to address the feedback, we鈥檒l reject the proposal before assessment. This is to ensure the best use of public money for assessing CDE proposals.