Innovate UK Business Connect is the new name for Innovate UK KTN. We connect innovators with new partners and new opportunities beyond their existing thinking – accelerating ambitious ideas into real-world solutions.
Digital Health & Care
MedTech
Neurotechnology
Precision Medicine
Microbiome
AI in Health
Transforming Medicines Manufacturing
Biomedical Catalyst
Healthy Ageing Community of Practice
UK-Kenya Health Global Innovation Network
Phage Innovation Network
Medimap: End-to-end medicines supply chain map
Health Funding Map
Driving the Electric Revolution
Foundation Industries
Made Smarter Innovation Network
Circular Critical Materials Supply Chains
Transforming Medicines Manufacturing
Climate Change Adaptation Innovation Network
Made Smarter Innovation Network
Circular Critical Materials Supply Chains
Resource Efficiency for Materials and Manufacturing (REforMM)
Sustainable bio-based Materials and Manufacture (SusBioMM)
Explore the diverse range of UK industries supported by Innovate UK Business Connect.
Since September 2023, Innovate UK has supported SMEs looking to expand into Europe by providing travel awards to enable innovators to attend events in several different countries and form new collaborative partnerships to help their business grow and simultaneously strengthen the UK economy.
Kenya Innovation Week (KIW) 2024, held from 25 to 29 November, provided a powerful platform to assess, celebrate, and energise Kenya’s National Innovation Ecosystem. Organised by the Kenya National Innovation Agency (KeNIA), the event highlighted how innovation can be leveraged to advance national priorities, including the Bottom-Up Economic Transformation Agenda (BETA) and Vision 2030. With a focus on job creation, wealth generation, and improving Kenya’s global competitiveness, KIW showcased cutting-edge innovations that are driving Kenya’s dynamic knowledge economy.
Future Flight Challenge, delivered by Innovate UK and the Economic and Social Research Council (ESRC), is supporting a new programme for local authorities to learn more about future flight, and for the future flight industry to gain a better understanding of how to engage with local authorities.
The Innovate UK Climate-Smart Agriculture Partnership: UK-Brazil-Africa is bringing innovative people and organisations together through a range of initiatives starting with Scoping Projects. The projects will identify opportunities for collaboration and knowledge sharing to develop technologies and practices that promote climate-smart agriculture solutions for sustainable food production systems in Ghana and Nigeria.
The 14 teams involved in the eighth year of the Cyber Security Academic Startup Accelerator Programme (CyberASAP) began the second phase of their training with a highly-focused bootcamp.
Celebrating the progress and potential of Wales’s innovation ecosystem
The 10th anniversary of the UK National Quantum Technology Programme (NQTP) has been celebrated with a technology showcase event to embrace the dawn of the next decade of quantum innovation.
Six innovative projects have received £3.6m from Innovate UK and over $7.6 million from Australia to advance innovation and new economic opportunities.
Over 600 delegates attended the fourth annual Global Research and Innovation in Plastics Sustainability Conference (GRIPS 2024) on Thursday 19 September, held at the University of Sheffield, and online.
Innovate UK Business Connect helps organisations interested in AgriFood innovation access the expert information, funding and connections needed to drive change. Our experts work with businesses of all sizes; locally, nationally and globally.
The Biotechnology team at Innovate UK Business Connect focuses on Industrial Biotechnology (IB), Engineering Biology (EB, commonly referred to as Synthetic Biology) and Microbiomes.
By 2050 our industry will have embraced a circular economy and be using different feedstocks, technologies and energy sources to produce chemicals. The Innovate UK Business Connect Chemistry team can help you navigate these changes and identify innovation that will ensure your business, research or service remains sustainable.
The Innovate UK Business Connect Creative team helps organisations interested in innovation in the Creative Industries to access funding, expert knowledge and to make powerful and diverse connections.
Human-centred design is for businesses of any size who are interested in early-stage innovation strategy. For start-ups, strategic design helps get brilliant ideas to the right market. For established businesses, it helps reposition or expand their offering.
The Innovate UK Business Connect Digital team helps organisations interested in Digital innovation to access funding, expert knowledge and to make powerful and diverse connections.
Electronics is the enabler of all things digital. It is the hardware and embedded software that allows products and processes to communicate, have power, have intelligence and awareness, be controlled, be automated and operate safely. It’s built into many sectors, including health, aerospace, manufacturing and retail.
Innovate UK Business Connect’s Energy Team is at the centre of our work contributing to delivering the UK’s ambitious Net Zero targets. With specialists in Nuclear, Offshore Wind, Thermal Energy Systems, Batteries, Water, Hydrogen, Sustainable Energy, Grid and Distributed Systems, Electrical Energy Systems and Solar, the team has deep expertise, powerful connections and a track record of successful projects delivering environmental and societal impact.
The world is powered by data; turning data into information helps us make decisions across all sectors of the economy. Innovate UK Business Connect hosts an innovation network that focuses on connecting the data holders and data processors with the people that can benefit from the insight geospatial data can provide.
Health is critical to our wellbeing as individuals, plays a key role in societal and economic advances, and presents many opportunities for environmental impact. Innovations in health & care allow us to alleviate suffering, increase quality of life and life expectancy, and manage the needs of a changing and ageing population.
Innovate UK Business Connect’s Industrial Maths team harnesses the power of mathematics to meet the needs of business, government and not-for-profit organisations, helping a wide range of sectors express problems and challenges in an accessible way. We also facilitate new partnerships with an extensive network of mathematical science practitioners and diverse institutions across the UK.
Against an overarching low carbon agenda, our mission is to support the development of UK innovation to deliver clean, accessible and secure energy & water systems through a digitally enabled construction sector and so provide smart, resilient and successful cities and communities.
The UK is one of the largest global manufacturing countries; this sector is vital for our economic productivity and growth. Innovate UK helps manufacturers to innovate and innovators to manufacture. We work across technologies connecting you to partners, experts, facilities and funding, working with businesses at all stages from start-up to scale up.
The Materials Team at Innovate UK Business Connect covers a broad scope of the materials life cycle, from feedstock, processing techniques, design and manufacture, testing, standardisation, resource efficiency and circularity.
Photonics is the science and technology of light. This includes lasers, optical systems and components, as well as fibre optics. Photonics is a £13.5 billion industry in the UK, with the technology used across various UK industries and in society, from optical communications and data storage to laser sensors for autonomous vehicles.
Quantum-enabled devices present a huge market opportunity for the UK. These technologies could transform a range of sectors including transport, healthcare, infrastructure, ICT, telecommunications and defence.
From Healthcare to Legaltech, Robotics and Artificial Intelligence are significant globalised technologies that can be applied in many sectors. The extensive industrial and academic research base in the UK can support both the national and global markets in addressing key challenges impacting societies today.
The UK is committed to spending a minimum 2% of GDP on defence over the next decade, and at least 20% of that spending on equipment. This commitment represents spending some £186bn on defence equipment and support in the 10 years from 2018/19. The UK is also the second largest defence exporter, winning defence orders worth £14bn in 2018.
Sensor technologies create measurements and convert them into digital data. This data can then be analysed to inform decision making. What’s being measured could be chemical, biological, physical, mechanical or any other quantities such as chemicals, proteins, weight, dimensions and more.
The UK has a rapidly growing and rich heritage of commercial space innovation, building more small satellites than any other country in Europe, and a thriving space data analytics community building products in areas including climate, transport and financial services.
Innovation in transport has the potential to benefit our economy, society and environment. The transport system of the future will be more efficient, cleaner and smarter, through utilising enhanced digital, communication and automated technologies.
The water sector impacts every person, business and industry type in the UK. We turn on the tap and expect clean water. We rely on the water infrastructure, the pipes, the sewerage treatment, the rapid fixing of leaks. And we expect environmental issues to be a cornerstone of the industry and its operations.
Partnering with regions across the UK to foster innovation ecosystems that drive local impact and national capability.
We want the very best of the world connected to the very best of the UK. That’s why we built this programme; to form international collaborations with governments, societies, enterprises, institutions and people from every corner of the globe. It is innovation diplomacy at its best.
We work with public innovation funding and private finance providers where investment can create a positive change.
The world is changing at an ever greater pace. Industry and innovators are responding, working together to create the products, services and businesses of the future. Innovate UK Business Connect is here to help.
Innovate UK Business Growth is a key part of the UK innovation agency’s investment in the innovative businesses that drive economic growth.
For over 45 years Knowledge Transfer Partnerships have been helping businesses innovate for growth by accessing the UK’s world-leading knowledge base.
Featured Sector Information
Since September 2023, Innovate UK has supported SMEs looking to expand into Europe by providing travel awards to enable innovators to attend events in several different countries and form new collaborative partnerships to help their business grow and simultaneously strengthen the UK economy.
Kenya Innovation Week (KIW) 2024, held from 25 to 29 November, provided a powerful platform to assess, celebrate, and energise Kenya’s National Innovation Ecosystem. Organised by the Kenya National Innovation Agency (KeNIA), the event highlighted how innovation can be leveraged to advance national priorities, including the Bottom-Up Economic Transformation Agenda (BETA) and Vision 2030. With a focus on job creation, wealth generation, and improving Kenya’s global competitiveness, KIW showcased cutting-edge innovations that are driving Kenya’s dynamic knowledge economy.
Future Flight Challenge, delivered by Innovate UK and the Economic and Social Research Council (ESRC), is supporting a new programme for local authorities to learn more about future flight, and for the future flight industry to gain a better understanding of how to engage with local authorities.
The Innovate UK Climate-Smart Agriculture Partnership: UK-Brazil-Africa is bringing innovative people and organisations together through a range of initiatives starting with Scoping Projects. The projects will identify opportunities for collaboration and knowledge sharing to develop technologies and practices that promote climate-smart agriculture solutions for sustainable food production systems in Ghana and Nigeria.
The 14 teams involved in the eighth year of the Cyber Security Academic Startup Accelerator Programme (CyberASAP) began the second phase of their training with a highly-focused bootcamp.
Celebrating the progress and potential of Wales’s innovation ecosystem
The 10th anniversary of the UK National Quantum Technology Programme (NQTP) has been celebrated with a technology showcase event to embrace the dawn of the next decade of quantum innovation.
Six innovative projects have received £3.6m from Innovate UK and over $7.6 million from Australia to advance innovation and new economic opportunities.
Over 600 delegates attended the fourth annual Global Research and Innovation in Plastics Sustainability Conference (GRIPS 2024) on Thursday 19 September, held at the University of Sheffield, and online.
Innovate UK’s 50 Emerging Technologies report takes a bite-size look at technologies likely to be important for the UK economy in 20 years’ time.
9 innovation partnerships to extract rare earths and minerals, from sources including mining waste and volcanic rock, have been awarded £3.5 million of funding from Innovate UK.
In 2023/24 we extended our outreach to innovators throughout the UK, and we provided support for the UK's transition to Net Zero, showing our commitment to tackling the critical global challenges we face.
Innovate UK’s 50 Emerging Technologies report takes a bite-size look at technologies likely to be important for the UK economy in 20 years’ time.
9 innovation partnerships to extract rare earths and minerals, from sources including mining waste and volcanic rock, have been awarded £3.5 million of funding from Innovate UK.
In 2023/24 we extended our outreach to innovators throughout the UK, and we provided support for the UK's transition to Net Zero, showing our commitment to tackling the critical global challenges we face.
Manufacturers, startups and research organisations amongst founding members of the new coalition to advance the use of artificial intelligence (AI) to drive industrial decarbonisation.
UK registered academic institutions, RTOs or Catapults can apply for a share of up to £9m to fund innovation projects with businesses or not for profits.
Innovate UK system
The Innovate UK system is an ecosystem of expertise, funding, and powerful connections. Learn about how we can each uniquely help you achieve your innovation goals.
