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Organisations can apply for a share of £125,000 to investigate ideas for new digital tools that will help students make informed choices about where they study.

The Department for Education has up to £125,000 to invest in a series of studies into ways of using data on graduate salary and employment to create digital tools that help prospective students make informed choices.

Students often make uninformed decisions about what and where to study. The department wants to create a free, accessible and commercially sustainable digital tool for students that uses existing data about graduate employment and salaries.

Up to 5 studies could be funded in the first phase. The best ideas could share £300,000 to develop their ideas further in a second phase.

Proposals must include plans for user discussions or testing to ensure solutions meet students needs, and they must use graduate outcomes data.

The competition is run under SBRI (the Small Business Research Initiative), which helps the public and private sectors come together to solve challenges facing government.

Find out more about SBRI and how it works.

Competition information

• the competition opens on 25 June 2018, and the deadline for registration is at midday on 8 August 2018
• it is open to any organisation that can demonstrate a route to market for its idea
• we expect phase 1 contracts to be worth up to £25,000 and to last up to 1 month
• successful projects will attract 100% funded development contracts
• a briefing event and innovation day will be held on 18 July 2018 at the Open Data Institute in Leeds

Find out more about this competition and apply.