Evidence Generation Bootcamp FAQs

Quality evidence is vital for digital health companies to succeed but it is challenging to know how to generate effective, relevant evidence. To successfully launch a digital health product in London, companies should have evidence to demonstrate their product is suited to the needs of the National Health Service (NHS) in the UK.
The 8-week DigitalHealth.London Evidence Generation Bootcamp provides a unique opportunity for digital health companies to pinpoint their evidence needs and navigate the complexities of evidence generation through expert support. Watch the Evidence Generation Bootcamp 101 webinar for more information.

A place on the programme will cost £7,500 (plus VAT if applicable), however London-based small and medium-size companies may be eligible to apply for a fully-funded place if they have not previously participated in DigitalHealth.London’s Accelerator or Launchpad programmes. These places will be part-funded by the European Regional Development Fund, through the Greater London Authority, along with DigitalHealth.London’s partners.
 
The Evidence Generation Bootcamp is one a suite of DigitalHealth.London programmes that are delivered in partnership between London’s two of London’s AHSNs (Health Innovation Network and UCLPartners), MedCity, and CW+. It is supported by the Mayor of London; and is part-funded by the EU’s European Regional Development Fund (ERDF) as part of the European Structural and Investment Funds Growth Programme. The Department for Communities and Local Government is the managing authority for ERDF. Established by the European Union, the ERDF funds help local areas stimulate their economic development by investing in projects which will support innovation, businesses, create jobs and local community regenerations. For more information visit https://www.gov.uk/european-growth-funding.

The programme will last for 8 weeks. We will be providing approximately 14 hours of supervised support (workshops and one-to-one sessions) and recommend approximately one hour per week of self-directed learning. You are required to attend at least 12 hours of supervised support if you are eligible for a fully-funded place.

The programme is for digital health companies that are about to or have launched their product into the NHS in the UK, and are committed to driving their evidence generation forward. Places will be offered enterprises that have products or services with high potential to meet NHS and social care challenges. The programme is open to both UK and international companies, but only London-based companies will be eligible to apply for a fully-funded place.

Companies on the programme will attend a series of virtual events over the eight weeks including educational workshops, webinars and pitching sessions. The remotely delivered programme will provide peer support opportunities, access to expert advice, practical exercises and brokering of collaborative relationships. It will address the fundamental issues of why evidence generation needs to be core to the companies’ business plans, help them decide their evidence generation priorities and plan their evidence generation journey. Companies will also have the chance to engage with a richly curated repository of multimedia resources on evidence generation.
 
The companies on the programme will be expected to attend virtual events at the following times:
·         Monday 24 October, 10-11am BST
·         Tuesday 1 November, 10am-12:30pm GMT
·         Tuesday 8 November, 10am-12:30pm GMT
·         Tuesday 15 November, 10am-12:30pm GMT
·         Tuesday 22 November, 10am-12:30pm GMT
·         Wednesday 7 December, 10am-12:30pm GMT
Additional virtual one-to-one meetings, expert sessions and peer support opportunities will be arranged further to these times.

DigitalHealth.London is at the forefront of evidence generation with more than five years of experience, key expertise and extensive networks. The Generator programme has facilitated 43 new research collaborations between digital health companies and researchers including University of Cambridge, Imperial College London, King’s College London (KCL), University College London (UCL), Queen Mary university of London and many more. 
 
The #EvaluateDigiHealth webinars run by DigitalHealth.London in partnership with UCL, KCL, MedCity, the Health Innovation Network and others, have delivered three series. The three series combined attracted over 1700 registrations and in total, all 13 webinar recordings have received over 1600 views on YouTube.
 
DigitalHealth.London believes in the importance of being able to pivot in the same way as the companies we support. Our Driving Digital report highlighted the importance of determining how and what to evaluate in digital health in order to enable further adoption, and evidence generation continues to be one of the biggest challenges facing digital health companies.
 
We are therefore running this new, stand-alone Evidence Generation Bootcamp to reduce the barriers for companies to generate effective evidence.

The 2022 Evidence Generation Bootcamp programme will be run virtually, with all workshops taking place on Zoom. 

It is increasingly important that digital solutions address both health and social care problems, and the DigitalHealth.London Evidence Generation Bootcamp accepts applications from companies offering solutions in both the health and social care sectors.

DigitalHealth.London does not invest in companies or take any equity.

For companies attending that benefit from a fully-funded place on the DigitalHealth.London Evidence Generation Bootcamp does classify as assistance under the European Commission’s De Minimis Regulation (Commission Regulation (EU) No 1407/2013 of 18 December 2013) on the application of Articles 107 and 108 of the Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union to de minimis aid; Official Journal L 352/1 of 24.12.2013). This allows an undertaking to receive up to €200,000 worth of assistance over any three-year fiscal period (i.e. fiscal years used by the undertaking in the UK). The amount of de minimis aid that your company will receive through the accelerator is estimated to be worth the equivalent of £7,500. You will receive a State Aid certificate at the end of your involvement with the accelerator programme, confirming how much de minimis aid you received. More information can be found here.

The Evidence Generation Bootcamp focuses specifically on supporting digital health companies with their evidence generation through a concentrated 8-week programme of workshops and content.

DigitalHealth.London’s Accelerator is a 12-month programme which supports companies across a broader range of areas including evidence generation, but also working with the NHS, refining products, market navigation and much more. The Launchpad programme is a 12-week programme for earlier stage companies, supporting them to launch a new product into the NHS. 
 
The Evidence Generation Bootcamp specifically focuses on evidence generation for digital health companies, which differs from the NHS Innovation Accelerator (NIA) which is a broader national spread and adoption programme for healthcare innovations (not just digital innovation).
 
The SBRI Healthcare programme provides funding to develop innovations that meet the challenges facing the healthcare system. The DigitalHealth.London Bootcamp works with companies who have already developed solutions.
 
Companies are able to take part in the Evidence Generation Bootcamp at the same time as the NIA or SBRI programmes.

Following the completion of support, all programme participants join a growing number of companies as a DigitalHealth.London alumnus. The team encourages alumni companies to keep in touch.

In order to ensure a personalised and high-quality experience from participating in the Bootcamp we will be limiting the numbers on this programme to under 20 companies – so we will select companies competitively.

We will allow one named participant from each company to attend the Bootcamp. The programme will be most beneficial if this person remains the same throughout the programme, however we will encourage substitution in the case of resignation or sickness.

We only have limited resources to support fully-funded places, so we require you to attend at least 12 hours of the supervised supported sessions. If you do not attend this minimum time requirement, we may request that you pay for attending the Bootcamp.

There are 2 parts to the application process. In order to be considered, companies are required to submit both the DigitalHealth.London Evidence Generation Programme application form and either the Funding Eligibility Form (for those companies that meet the eligibility criteria for the full-funded places) and/or the Payment Information Form (for those companies paying for a place on the programme) by the deadline.
 
The application form can be found here, the Funding Eligibility Form here and the Payment Information Form here. It is easy to complete and includes questions about your company, your product(s) and your motivation for joining the programme. The deadline for the application is Midnight (BST) September 28 2022.

All companies applying to the programme must have launched their product and must be committed to driving their evidence generation forward. Companies should have products or services with high potential to meet NHS and social care challenges.
 
In addition, companies applying for a fully-funded place must meet the following criteria:
1)     Companies must demonstrate compliance with the EU definition of small and medium-sized enterprise (SME) at the time of embarking on the programme http://ec.europa.eu/growth/smes/business-friendly-environment/sme-definition_en. If you are not sure whether you meet the criteria, we will be able to make a judgment based on your responses to questions in the application form.
2)     Companies need to be registered with UK Companies House, or the equivalent in country of trading.
3)     Companies must be based in London.
4)     Companies must have not previously participated in DigitalHealth.London Accelerator and Launchpad programmes.
5)     Companies applying for a funded place need to be below the threshold of the European Commission’s De Minimis Regulation, which allows an undertaking to receive up to €200,000 worth of assistance over any three-year fiscal period. The amount of de minimis aid that a company will receive through the Evidence Generation Bootcamp programme is estimated to be worth £7,500.

If you are unsure of whether you meet the eligibility criteria for a fully-funded place, we recommend you fill in the DigitalHealth.London Application Form, the Funding Eligibility Form and the Payment Information Form. 

For reference, you can find a list of the application questions here. The questions from these forms have been copied here to help you draft your answers. You must copy your answers into the relevant Typeform and submit online in order for your application to be considered. The application form can be found here, where there are links directing you to the Funding Eligibility Form and the Payment Information Form.

We would like to encourage companies from both UK and internationally to apply for the DigitalHealth.London Evidence Generation Bootcamp. However, companies should consider their ability to attend virtual workshops taking place at UK time.

We consider applications from all companies. However, we strongly advise applicants to consider their capacity to attend training and workshops.

Companies and individuals that are already working with the NHS or private healthcare can certainly still benefit from the programme.

The programme is for any enterprises that is about to or has launched their product or service, and are committed to driving their evidence generation forward in the UK.

Any public body or publicly funded body giving assistance to a company should clearly communicate that the support fall under state aid rules from the outset. Following the end of support, the recipient should receive a certificate detailing what support was given and how much state aid the support equated to. If you are unsure, please contact the organisation who provided the support. The most common state aid support we see in applications for the programme are:
–       Innovate UK, where a majority of their support through their research, development and innovation scheme falls within state aid rules.
–       Knowledge Exchange and Embed Partnerships

Our webinars should provide all the information you need – you can watch our 101 webinar here.
 
Should you still have any questions, please email info@digitalhealth.london with any queries and someone from the team will be happy to help you. In the unlikely event we are unable to answer your question over email, we will happily set up a call with an appropriate team member.

Unfortunately, once you have submitted your application, you are unable to edit your answers. We recommend applicants make use of the wide application window to allow them to finetune all answers before submitting and draft your answers in a word document first.

Due to a limited number of places on the Bootcamp programme, we are expecting the application process to be competitive, so experts will score applicants on their suitability for participation in three areas:
1)     Commitment to the programme
2)     Potential to benefit from the programme
3)     NHS need and potential to help provide appropriate solutions

The programme start date will be 24 October 2022.

Applicants will be contacted by 14 October 2022 regarding the outcome of the application review.

Due to the large number of applications we receive we do not offer feedback if applicants are not successful.