Cyber Security Academic Startup Accelerator Programme Year 9: phase 1
Individuals based in a UK academic institution can apply for a share of up to £800,000 to join the Cyber Security Academic Startup Accelerator Programme (CyberASAP).
Opportunity Details
When
Registration Opens
20/01/2025
Registration Closes
12/02/2025
Award
Up to £32,000 per project. Your total eligible project costs will be 100% funded. The only eligible costs are salaries for those participating in the programme, travel and subsistence to attend organised events.
Organisation
Innovate UK
Innovate UK, part of UK Research and Innovation, will work with the Department for Science, Innovation and Technology (DSIT) to invest up to £800,000 in innovative cyber security projects coming from an academic research base.
The aim of this competition is to identify the most promising commercial opportunities in academia in respect to cyber security.
Your proposal must include the area of your research, the problem that you are solving and your proposed solution.
The Cyber Security Academic Startup Accelerator Programme (CyberASAP) is an 11 month programme. This is phase 1 of a potential 2 phase competition. Phase 1 will last up to four months, split into two stages:
- an initial two months for value proposition development activities, followed by a presentation to an independent judging panel who will select teams to go to stage 2
- a further two months for market validation activities
Phase 1 will determine the value of the idea and, if appropriate, identify the best commercial route to progress. The programme will be supported by industry experts, including some from cyber security.
This competition has two funding strands for entry:
Strand 1: Industry Challenge-Led strand with the following cross cutting challenges:
National and Emergency Service Infrastructure Security, including:
- energy, including networks
- transport
- telecoms
Operational and supply chain resilience, including:
- manufacturing
- agriculture
- public sector, including local government and healthcare
Harms, including:
- metaverse
- AI model security
- ransomware
- quantum
Dual Use, National Security, including:
- drones
- robotics
- IoT
- sensors
These lists are not exhaustive.
Strand 2: open strand
Note that although you can select the strand for your project, we will make the final decision which strand is the most appropriate for your application.
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To lead a project or work alone you must:
- be based in a UK registered academic institution
- have a cyber security idea
- be interested in the commercialisation of your idea
- have the support of your academic institution’s technology transfer office or equivalent
- not act in any way to gain selective commercial or economic advantage from the outputs of this project
To collaborate with the lead, you must:
- be based in a UK academic institution
- be interested in the commercialisation of your idea
- have the support of your academic institution’s technology transfer office or equivalent
All individuals based in a UK academic institution are eligible, including but not limited to early career researchers and senior academic researchers.
You can submit more than one application if you have multiple ideas, but we will not select more than one for funding.
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Your project must:
- have total costs must be between £5000 and £32,000 with £16,000 allocated to stage 1 and £16,000 to stage 2
- carry out its project work in the UK
- intend to exploit the results from or in the UK
- start on 1 April 2025
- end by 31st July 2025
You must only include eligible project costs in your application. The only eligible costs are salaries for those participating in the programme, travel and subsistence to attend organised events.
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Participants in phase 1 with ideas that demonstrate the most potential for commercialisation will be invited to apply to participate in phase 2, where funding is available to develop a proof of concept for the product or service.
If we award you funding, you must be dedicated to the project for the two month value proposition building activity from 1 April 2025. If we decide you can continue to the market validation activity you must be dedicated for the additional two months until 31 July 2025.
‘Dedicated to the project’ means you must:
- attend two days of in person events and three days of online events as part of the initial two month value proposition activity
- be expected to attend an additional day if you are in the Industry Challenge-Led cohort
- be able and permitted to work on your project for at least two days a week in order to make it a success
You will be contacted by Innovate UK Business Connect with full details of events relevant to you, including confirmed dates.
The planned dates for the value proposition stage are:
- 1 and 2 April 2025: in person value proposition bootcamp
- 4 April 2025: webinar for Technology Transfer Officers or equivalent
- 7 and 8 May 2025: online value proposition mid-stage review
- 2 and 3 June 2025: online value proposition pitch to selection panel, teams must pitch at a slot on one of these two days
Industry Challenge-Led strand participants are expected to attend the additional in person event on 3 April 2025.
Innovate UK Business Connect will hold informal weekly one hour drop-in sessions during the value proposition stage. These will be on Friday mornings from 10am to 11am.
Before the formal start of the programme an informal online introduction session is planned for 25 March 2025. Innovate UK Business Connect will advise all participants of the time in due course.
If selected to undertake the additional two months for market validation, you must commit to attend three days of in person events and two days of online events. In addition the Industry Challenge-Led cohort is expected to attend an additional in person day.
The planned dates are:
- 3 to 5 June 2025: attend InfoSec at ExCel London: optional
- 10 and 11 June 2025: in person market validation bootcamp
- 30 June 2025: online market validation mid-stage review
- 1 July 2025: online meet the entrepreneur day
- 29 and 30 July 2025: market validation pitch to selection panel, teams must pitch at a slot on one of these two days (hybrid: in person for teams, and virtual for assessors)
Industry Challenge-Led strand participants are expected to attend the additional in person event on 12 June 2025.
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The aim of this competition is to identify the most promising commercial opportunities in academia in respect to cyber security.
We define ‘cyber security’ to mean protecting any or all the following from unauthorised access, harm or misuse:
- information systems including hardware, software and associated infrastructure
- data on information systems
- services provided by information systems
This includes harm caused intentionally by the operator of the system, or accidentally, as a result of failing to follow security procedures.
Your proposal must include:
- the area of your research
- the problem you are solving
- your proposed solution
- your initial market validation plan
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We are not funding projects:
- that are not related to cyber security
- that are defence focused
- from academic institutions outside the UK
- that have no intention to commercialise
- that have an academic lead that has already led and completed a previous CyberASAP project
- which are classed as State aid under EC regulations or a subsidy under the EU-UK TCA
- with undertakings which gain a selective economic or commercial advantage from the funding
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An online briefing event will be held on 21 January 2025 at 2:30pm. Click here to register for a place.
Briefing slides will be available to download after the event.
For more details, visit the CyberASAP programme page or email cyberasap@iukbc.org.uk.
Our Experts
Related programme
CyberASAP
The only pre-seed accelerator programme in the cybersecurity ecosystem, CyberASAP (Cyber Security Academic Startup Accelerator Programme) plays a unique and vital role in supporting cyber security innovation and commercialisation.