It is essential to once you understand the scale you are aiming for, how this relates to the available funding. Gaining a good understanding of funding structures is helpful when wanting to identify where budget may be available.

Conduct a thorough budgeting exercise to understand how ambitions align with costs. Some things to consider are:​

• Who needs to be involved and when, what are their costs (e.g., steering group, Steering Group and Advisory Group)?​
• Where is required expertise missing, what is the cost of bringing this in?​
• How much funding do you aim to have available for the trials? How much of this is funding the technical installation? How much should be considered for support around the trials?​
• Conducting trials is a time-intensive process. When involving stakeholders, especially those operating within the station, consider how they may see benefit from engaging in the trial? Spending time getting involved means that these stakeholders are spending money, which may lead to them questioning the benefit of participation. Relationships are key, and may gain you some goodwill, but it is also worth taking into consideration how trial involvement can make arranged from a financial perspective.


For example, as a breakdown of the first year of the SIZ, the spending allocation was approximately:​

• 40% OPEX on activities directly linked to SIZ (e.g. challenge workshops, SME selection etc)​
• 30% OPEX on technical experts (e.g. refining trials, resolving issues)​
• 25% grant money to the 3 SMEs to develop and run their trials​
• 5% CAPEX to facilitate trials (installing power supply, materials etc)​


This provides an idea of the funding needed to enable innovation and helps make a judgement of where to direct funding or reallocate budget to.

​Understand the current contextual position of the station to understand where funding opportunities may arise. See the table below for suggestions of aspects to evaluate when reviewing the contextual position of the station.​