Using AI for Interrogating Regulatory DocumentsCopy Link

The NUiX challenge competition, delivered by the KTN, is supporting Tier 1 and Tier 2 companies (the Challenger) to identify innovative solutions to its innovation challenges. The winning business(s) in this competition will be given an opportunity to pitch their solution and potentially receive support from the KTN and the wider InnovateUK network.

Background

The Nuclear Innovation Exchange (NUiX) is supporting a challenge holder to identify transferable solutions for its innovation and customer needs.

For the whole of a facility’s life cycle, the safety of any activity being carried out in the facility must be substantiated and documented.  Building a robust and compliant safety case is essential for the safe management of projects and the safety of the engineers who work on them.  

When a principle safety consultant (PSC) develops or modifies a safety case or regulation, there is a need to consider a significant and complex array of regulatory and reference material.  A solution, which could include Artificial Intelligence (AI), is sought to support the PSC to increase productivity, significantly reduce the time required to produce the safety case or regulation (>50%) and increase the confidence in the proposed safety case or regulations. 

The challenge is to develop/offer smart systems that can look in to historical and current data/regulations, interpret a solution for the desired outcome and compile relative regulations and arguments to support.

It is expected that solutions may exist in some of the following sectors:

• Legal Profession
• Medical Sector
• Software and Artificial Intelligence (AI)
• Oil and Gas Industry
• Chemical Industry
• Transport Sector
• Defence Sector
• Health and Safety Executive
• Any Regulated Industries

To meet the desired timescale and risks, it is preferred that the proposed solution, or the key part(s) of the solution, has been previously demonstrated in an industrial environment (>TRL 3).  The solution should be achievable within health and safety requirements and regulations.

Rewards and Benefits

Successful applicants will be given an opportunity to pitch to the challenge holder. The package may also include:

• Support from the challenge owner to develop / commercialise the technology
• Support from the Catapults or the KTN to identify development funding
• Support in the development of a prototype or pilot study (approx. value of £100k) with the potential of providing a long term relationship

• Work with a global leader in developing your technology and aligning to the challenge owner need
• A place in KTN or Catapult events
• A potential business collaboration

Solution Requirements

Functional Requirements

• A potential solution capable of:
• Assessing documents in a range of formats (e.g. PDF, Word, drawings and paper-based documents)
• Assessing documents which may be online
• New safety cases / regulations must also highlight the consequential impact on existing safety cases and regulations
• Provide automation of the whole or part of the process 
• Be user friendly to the operator (e.g. PSC)
• Proposed solution should have the capability to learn with increased usage

Technical Characteristics

• Outputs to provide benefits over and above baseline methods – manual searching and key word searching
• Be able to integrate and assess data from across a range of documents and document formats (inc. text, drawings and images)
• Provide a solution which aligns to current regulations / industry standards which include but are not limited to:
  • Ionising Radiations Regulations 2017 and Approved Code of Practice and Guidance
  • Radioactive Substances Act 1993
  • High Activity Sealed Radioactive Sources and Orphan Sources Regulations 2005
  • Radiation (Emergency Preparedness and Public Information) Regulations 2001
  • Nuclear Installations Act 1965
  • IAEA International Safety Standards, including Transport Regulations
  • Safety Assessment Principles (2014 edition) and supporting Technical Assessment Guides
  • Health and Safety at Work etc Act 1974
  • Environmental Protection Act 1990
• Provide a solution which allows the upload of individual site standards or procedures.

Deployment Timescale

• Validation of solution: within 1 year
• Field trials: within 1-2 years
• Commercial implementation: within 3 years (quicker if possible)

Operating Conditions

• Enables the PSC or relevant person to carry out the focused work and supports the PSC in performing the high-level document searching and collation
• Reduces the amount of human time needed to search and compile data from both previous and current cases
• Enables access to past data which may not have been considered as part of a human search process

Cost Requirement and Market Opportunity

• The challenge holder is looking for a system which could be already in use in another sector but with some modifications may come to market within a cost structure to justify the initial spend. The client does not expect a singularly written project and cost associated
• The challenge owner would offer this support to other nuclear users at a cost to ensure continued development and collaboration
• There are several features which are fundamental to a good safety case: 
• Intelligible, Valid, Complete, Evidential, Robust, Integrated, Balanced and Forward Looking. 
• The opportunity / challenge is to support the PSC in removing the laborious aspects of identifying and assessing a significant number of documents to achieve these fundamental aims of the work.

Eligibility and Assessment Criteria

Entrants to this competition must be:

• Established businesses, start-ups, SMEs or individual entrepreneurs
• UK based or have the intention to set up a UK base

Applications will be assessed on:

• Relevance to the topic
• Innovative nature of the subject
• Coherence of the proposed business model
• Feasibility/ economic viability
• Development potential
• Maturity of project/solution
• Ability to launch project quickly/Ease of implementation
• Price/quality ratio
• Suitability for the Global Market

IP and Potential Commercial Route

• Existing background IP associated with a potential solution will remain with Solution Provider(s). Where any new IP generation is envisaged, it will be subject to the mutual IP agreement of the Solution Provider(s) and Innovation Challenger.
• Any commercial deployment of transferred solution or newly developed solution, through licensing, joint venture, partnership or direct investment, will be subject to the commercial agreement between the Solution Provider(s) and Innovation Challenger.
• Where necessary, a non-disclosure agreement (NDA) may be signed to uphold confidentiality in the engagement between the Solution Provider(s) and Innovation Challenger.
• Innovate UK and KTN do not take any share of IP ownership or enter into commercial venture through the NUiX programme.