UK Research and Innovation has made up to £3.5 million available to support projects developing new accountancy, insurance and legal services based on artificial intelligence (AI) and data technologies.

The funding comes from the UK government’s £20 million Industrial Strategy Challenge Fund Next Generation Services Challenge, which aims to explore how new technologies could transform these services.

According to a statement from Innovate UK, the service sector accounts for 80 per cent of the UK economy, with financial and professional services alone being worth £190 billion to the economy, employing 2.2 million.

“Services such as legal, accounting and insurance need to develop a new generation of services to improve what they do for their customers and to remain globally competitive,” it read.

The competition aims to speed up responsible development and adoption of AI and data technologies in accountancy, insurance and legal services through better access to data.

Applications are being sought from multi-disciplinary teams, including the social sciences and science and engineering and from teams that include regulators, users, service providers and technology providers.

Only projects developed at an innovation lab event are eligible to apply for funding. Projects must:

• have participated in the innovation lab taking place between 14 and 16 October 2019;
• identify and develop a data access method to allow an artificial intelligence application for one or more of the three sectors;
• address incentives, opportunities and ongoing business models for sustainable data access;
• and consider broader, non-technical issues around data access, including ethics, bias and privacy.
The competition opens on 14 October, with a deadline for applications on 20 November. Businesses of any size may apply, with Innovate UK stating it expects projects to attract a maximum grant of £1.15 million and contribute at least equal funding.

The government’s tech funding arm has been busy recently, launching similar competitions for quantum technology investment, autonomous vehicle cyber security and low carbon automotive technology.

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