£1.2m BFTT R&D Funding Awarded To The Most Sustainable And Innovative Fashion S.M.E.S.
Image Courtesy of BFFT
The BFTT initiative has awarded over £1.2 million to 10 of the UK fashion industry’s most innovative and sustainable brands.
The Business of Fashion, Textiles and Technology (BFTT) is a five-year industry-led project, which focusses on delivering sustainable innovation within the entire fashion and textile supply chain.
This BFTT programme, led by University of the Arts London in partnership with some of the UK’s leading Universities, is part of the Arts and Humanities Research Council (AHRC) Creative Industries Clusters Programme (CICP), funded by the UK Industrial Strategy Challenge Fund.
The initiative aims to foster a new, creative business culture in which fashion, textiles and technology businesses – from small and medium enterprises to multinational companies – can use R&D as a mechanism for growth.
We position industry as agents of sustainable technology and materials development.
From over 80 applications, 13 were shortlisted and provided with one-to-one mentoring, business workshops and training to help develop their initial concepts into fully fledged business plans.
Awards totalling over £1.2m will be made to: Ananas Anam, Anna Glover, AWAYTOMARS, Blackhorse Lane Ateliers, Chip[S] Board, Doppelhaus, Elvis & Kresse, Segura, Tengri and Tibor.
The Support
In addition, each recipient will receive a comprehensive package of support. This includes mentoring from leading academics across the partnership, hands-on specialist creative and technical support. Besides this, there is ongoing project management and strategic business support from across the BFTT team.
The awarded projects cover a range of sub-sectors and R&D areas, including:
bio-material development to non-woven textiles
a global design crowdsourcing platform
sustainable surface finishing processes
on-shoring of state-of-the-art sustainable manufacturing
novel digital solutions to increase transparency and improve sustainability in the sector
The projects, which all focus on a specific R&D challenge, will launch in Spring 2020. They will be running for 12-18 months depending on the complexity of the proposition.
The Programme
This award was made within the BFTT SME R&D Programme, which is hosted by the University of the Arts London (UAL), in partnership with some of the UK’s leading universities.
The programme consists of a bespoke support package designed to enable small and medium enterprises from across the fashion, textiles and technology sector, access to expertise and resources to develop the next generation of sustainability-driven products, services and experiences.
Over 2020/21 we will be launching further funding support of a similar value.