Innovate UK innovation loans future economy: Round 20

To receive an innovation loan for a new project you must:

• be a UK registered micro, small or medium-sized enterprise (SME)
• carry out your project from or in the UK
• intend to exploit the results from or in the UK
• give evidence that your business is suitable to take on a loan

Only single businesses can receive loans, so collaboration with other organisations cannot be funded in this competition.

Individuals, large companies, not for profits, charities, academic institutions, and research organisations are not eligible for innovation loans.

Your business can only submit one application per round of this competition.

You cannot submit an application in this competition at the same time as submitting an application in any other innovation loans or defence innovation loans competition.

You can apply for a loan of between £100,000 and £2 million to fund your project’s eligible costs.

Projects can last up to five years, including both the R&D and commercialisation phases. Projects are expected to start by 1 September 2025. Your exact project start date and first innovation loan drawdown will depend on the timing of the final credit committee decision and completion of loan documentation.

Innovate UK is offering up to £25 million in loans to micro, small and medium sized enterprises (SMEs). Innovate UK innovation loans are for highly innovative late stage research and development (R&D) projects with the best potential for the future. There must be a clear route to commercialisation and economic impact.

Your project must lead to innovative new products, processes or services that are significantly ahead of others currently available, or propose an innovative use of existing products, processes or services. It can also involve a new or innovative business model.

Your project must demonstrate:

• a clearly expressed and compelling innovative idea
• a robust and deliverable business plan that addresses and shows evidence of market potential and needs
• a team with the necessary skills and experience to run and complete the project successfully and on time, and take the outputs forward
• awareness of all the main risks the project and business will face, with realistic plans to manage, mitigate and minimise the impact of each of these
• sound, practical financial plans and timelines that represent good value for money and ability to repay the loan
• why you are unable to fund the project from your own resources or other forms of public or private sector funding
• a clear, evidence-based plan to deliver significant economic impact, return on investment (ROI) and growth through commercialisation, as soon as possible after project completion

Your project can include:

• prototyping
• demonstrating
• piloting
• testing
• validation

These can be in environments that represent real life operating conditions.

We encourage innovation involving communities that are typically under-represented including:

• from regions that have historically accessed lower levels of investment (outside London, Oxford and Cambridge)
• ethnic minority groups
• women and other marginalised genders
• people with disabilities
• people with non-traditional education backgrounds

We particularly welcome applications from businesses from these communities.

Your project must focus on one or more of the following themes or sub-themes:

Net Zero

• energy
• impact of industrial processes and use of materials
• agriculture and food and other sources of emissions
• capital intensity

Health and wellbeing

• tackling ill health
• enhancing wellbeing
• diet and food

Next generation digital technologies

Technology families

• advanced materials and manufacturing
• artificial intelligence digital and advanced computing
• bioinformatics and genomics
• engineering biology
• electronics, photonics and quantum technologies
• energy and environment technologies
• robotics and smart machines

A briefing event for all applicants for round 20, which will provide an overview of the future economy innovation loans programme and detailed information about the application process, will be held online from 2pm to 4pm on Tuesday 18 March. A recording will be available afterwards.

Deep dive workshops

The business and financial submission is a critical part of the application loan in the future economy innovation loans programme. We will be holding ‘deep dive’ workshops to enable applicants to consider how an innovation loan may fit within their funding strategy for growth at scale through innovation, and to engage with members of the innovation loans team and other applicants. The online workshops will have a maximum of 45 participants to promote engagement and discussion. You can register for these workshops at the same time as registering for the briefing above.

Prior registration is mandatory for these workshops and applicants will only be permitted to register one participant at one workshop. Since each applicant will only be permitted one participant, we recommend that this should be the Chief Financial Officer or another member of the Board or Senior Leadership team with responsibility for developing the funding strategy for growth through innovation of the business.

• Deep dive workshop 1: Wednesday 26 March 11.00am – 12.30pm
• Deep dive workshop 2: Tuesday 1 April 2.00pm – 3.30pm
• Deep dive workshop 3: Thursday 10 April 10.00am – 11.30am