Leading UK affordable homes-led placemaker Places for People, is developing an ambitious programme to enhance the quality of its assets, which also responds to wider trends such as environmental sustainability and an ageing society.

There are Four Futures for Places for People’s future of housing innovation programme, one of which is Forever Living Homes: a theme centred around supporting the general needs of the residential housing sector. Specifically for people who need to live safely and independently in their homes for longer, by finding solutions that can prevent negative impacts on their living standards.

In partnership with Places for People, the Connected Places Catapult will be delivering an Industry Day on 10th March (9.30am – 12.30pm GMT).  We are welcoming SMEs who are looking to tackle the challenge of the Forever Living Homes programme, to apply for a chance to be selected for a showcase opportunity to Places for People.

About Places For People

Places for People is a leading UK affordable homes-led placemaker. It believes that places work when they work for everyone, and these places are designed for the long term, with sustainable value at their core. Delivering social impact by taking a commercial approach is what makes Places for People different.

The Group’s award-winning, placemaking, property investment, development and management companies are active throughout the UK and collectively have the capability and expertise to create and manage entire places, considering all the things a place needs to become a sustainable community.  

Places for People owns or manages more than 209,000 homes, operates over 100 leisure facilities, has assets of £4.8bn, and will deliver 2,603 affordable homes by 2024 through its partnership with Homes England.

Places for People is sponsoring CPC to deliver the Forever Living Homes programme.

The Challenges

In relevance to the Forever Living Homes vision, CPC and Places for People have identified the following target challenges to be tackled:

• Slip: A slip is to lose one's footing and slide unintentionally for a short distance, causing the person to lose their balance, this is either corrected or causes a person to fall.
• Trip: A trip is to catch one's foot on something and accidentally stumble or fall, often over an obstacle, causing the person to lose their balance. This is either corrected or causes the person to fall.
• Fall: An in-depth and possibly on-going process of identifying falls risk factors that can be treated, managed or improved for residents, with the aim of reducing the individuals’ risk of falling.

Benefits and Business Opportunities

Places for People is looking for innovative SMEs who have the potential to create integrated solutions that can be piloted to fit the needs of the target sector and challenges (Slip, Trip, and Fall), as outlined in the scope of the Forever Living Homes programme.  

The Industry Day provides an excellent opportunity for selected SMEs to meet with the Places for People team and showcase their solutions, explaining how the solution fits to tackle the challenges as outlined in Forever Living Homes. This in turn opens avenues for SMEs who are at pre-commercial and operational stage, to create use cases in this market, which in turn fosters new pathways for new commercial opportunities in this sector.

We are looking for quality pitches to be delivered during the Industry Day, therefore selected SMEs will be invited to take part in a briefing masterclass prior to the Industry Day.  The masterclass is designed to assist SMEs to tailor their pitch to fit with Places for People’s audience.  During the masterclass, the CPC team will also present user research findings of the Forever Living Homes project which can ensure we give our SME cohort sufficient market knowledge of the sector.

Eligibility

To qualify, you must be an SME with fewer than 250 employees.  We are looking for SMEs who have a post-Minimal Viable Product (MVP) stage solution, and who are looking to demonstrate this solution in the general needs residential housing sector; aimed at preventing negative impacts on living standards, thereby providing safer and more independent living.

Your solution must be validated and tested close to expected performance in an intended environment (at least TRL 6).  

In particular, we are looking for solutions that could fit within the following themes:

• Prevention: solutions that can enable early interventions to be conducted before a possible slip, trip, or fall. This could be a digital solution, sensor technologies, AI-assisted remote monitoring, or other predictive analysis technologies.
• Detection: Tools that can detect and predict chances of such accidents to occur.  This would ideally be a non-wearable device which can monitor and analyse data to decrease these chances. 

Your solution should be suitable for any age group of resident but typically used for those aged 55+, and should help detect changes in status or increased risk/vulnerability.  Furthermore, your solution should be suitable for the integration into general housing (i.e. not specifically for only the elderly or vulnerable population, but rather should be applicable and can be adopted by younger age groups). This project is not designed for supported housing where the resident is already receiving care, nor is it designed to act as a supplementary support for those with multimorbidity, or to supplement care for those under hospital supervision.

We are also supporting businesses with higher TRL solutions; and those who have deployed in an operational environment other than in the residential homes sector.  We will support this within the program to help find ways for new product-market fit. 

To Apply (Applications are now CLOSED)

Please apply by downloading the Application Pack below and send the completed Application Form to Cera on cera.wong@cp.catapult.org.uk, before the 22nd February deadline.

Timeline

• Open Call launch: 8th February
• Open Call closes: 22nd February
• Shortlisting interviews: w/c 22nd February
• Selection of finalists: w/c 22nd February
• Signed agreements: No later than 26th February
• Masterclass: 1st March
• Industry Day: 10th March (9.30am – 12.30pm GMT)

Evaluation Criteria

In addition to adhering to the Eligibility criteria, CPC and Places for People will be conducting the evaluations based on the following:

• Your understanding of the Forever Living Homes market segment.
• The degree to which your solution has been demonstrated in this and/or other market segment(s)
• Your ability as a business to mitigate risks
• Your ability to differentiate your business from other competitors
• A robust plan for sustainable business development (assessing on current costs, and plans for income generation)
• The degree to which your teams’ skills can readily meet the demands detailed in the Forever Living Homes scope.
• The extent to which you comply with current GDPR regulations and other legal legislations.
• The extent to which the intellectual property of your solution is being protected.
• The suitability of your product to integrate with other similar products.
• The communication and data transfer protocols relating to your product (ideally avoiding the need for wifi)

Terms & Conditions

Information received in response to this open call will be used by CPC and Places for People to evaluate the proposals made by applicants using the evaluation criteria detailed.

Applicants should respond in accordance with these instructions. Failure to respond in accordance with these instructions may result in your application not being considered further.

Applications will only be accepted as compliant if they:

• Provide the required information;
• Provide a response to all questions; and
• Are submitted before the deadline.

CPC expressly reserves the right to require an applicant to provide additional information supplementing or clarifying any of the information provided in response to the requests set out in this competition document. This does not create an obligation for CPC to have to make such requests.

Candidates will be deemed ineligible if:

• They do not comply with the response requirements stated above;
• They do not submit their application on time;

Successful applicants will be expected to sign a Letter of Agreement with CPC in order to participate in the Forever Living Homes programme.  

Point of Contact

If you have any questions about the application, please contact Cera on cera.wong@cp.catapult.org.uk.