UK Digital Twin Centre Collaborative R&D Pathways

Applicants should select the Pathway that best matches the question they need to investigate.

Opportunity assessment 

Explore the strategic potential of a novel digital twin opportunity and understand what would be required to take it forward. 

The Pathway will investigate areas such as: 

• Strategic value and potential benefits. 
• Organisational and technology readiness. 
• Risks, dependencies and requirements. 
• Opportunities for future research, development or investment. 

You will receive company-specific findings and recommendations to help inform future decisions. 

Feasibility study 

Investigate whether a novel digital twin use case is technically feasible and understand what would be required to develop it further. 

The Pathway will investigate areas such as: 

• Technology and data readiness. 
• Digital twin architecture. 
• Data flows and integration. 
• Interoperability and standards. 
• Technical risks and implementation requirements. 

You will receive company-specific technical findings and recommendations to inform future research or development. 

Ontology discovery

Explore how the knowledge, data, assets, processes and relationships relevant to a digital twin use case could be represented and connected. 

The Pathway will investigate areas such as: 

• Relevant domain knowledge and terminology. 
• Assets, processes, data and relationships. 
• Competency questions and agreed use cases. 
• Existing knowledge models and potential ontology approaches. 

The project will produce an exploratory ontology model and recommendations for further ontology, interoperability or digital twin development.

Applicants may submit one application for one use case.

The open call is open to UK-registered organisations or organisations with an established UK place of business across industry and the wider economy. 

You should apply if your organisation: 

• Has identified a specific challenge or opportunity that could potentially be addressed using a digital twin.
• Has an important strategic, ontology, data or technical question that needs to be investigated.
• Has a reasonably novel use case rather than a routine application of an established approach.
• Can provide relevant staff, expertise, evidence, data, documentation or systems access.
• Is willing to collaborate actively with Digital Catapult throughout the project.
• Has a credible intention to use the findings to inform future research, development or investment.

You do not need to have an existing digital twin to apply. However, you will need a sufficiently defined challenge or proposed use case and access to the people and information required to undertake the research. 

We’re looking for organisations with a challenge, opportunity, or idea that could benefit from exploring the potential of digital twins. 

Pathways is designed for projects where the answer isn’t already known. It’s an opportunity to work alongside the UK Digital Twin Centre and Digital Catapult to investigate new approaches, test assumptions, and generate valuable insights together. 

Successful projects will typically: 

• Explore a new or emerging digital twin use case. 
• Tackle a challenge where there are still unanswered questions. 
• Benefit from collaboration, combining your expertise with ours. 
• Create knowledge, evidence, or approaches that could help others beyond your organisation. 
• Contribute to the growth of the UK’s digital twin ecosystem. 

Whether you’re looking to better understand a complex system, validate an innovative concept, or explore how digital twins could unlock new value, we’re interested in projects that have the potential to advance both industry practice and collective knowledge. 

Pathways is about exploration and learning. It’s not consultancy, and it’s not intended to deliver a finished production solution. Instead, it provides a space to investigate what’s possible, reduce uncertainty, and build the evidence needed for future innovation.