To lead a collaborative project your organisation must be a UK registered business of any size. The consortium must contain at least one UK registered micro, small or medium sized enterprise (SME) claiming grant funding on this application.

To collaborate with the lead, your organisation must be one of the following UK registered:

• business of any size
• academic institution
• charity
• not for profit
• public sector organisation
• research and technology organisation (RTO)

You must ensure that no single partner accounts for more than 70% of the eligible costs.

A UK registered business can lead a project and be included as a collaborator on any number of applications. An academic institution, research and technology organisation (RTO), charity, not for profit or public sector organisation can collaborate on any number of applications.

Your project must:

• have a grant funding request of between £70,000 and £500,000
• last between 6 and 18 months
• not start before April 2026

Any funded organisation needs to carry out their project work in the UK and must intend to exploit the project results from or in the UK.

The aim of this competition is to:

• accelerate the development and commercialisation of state of the art battery technologies in the UK
• support the growth of the UK battery supply chain and related companies
• enhance the UK’s competitiveness in the global battery market
• demonstrate how battery technologies can meet specific application requirements and drive electrification across diverse sectors

Your project must demonstrate the market demand for a chosen sector and application. The proposal must explain how your innovation can support the industry challenges and remove hurdles and enable UK competitiveness across the battery value chain.

Your proposed solutions can address the entire battery value chain and must consider the financial implications, sustainability targets, environmental impact and regulatory policies. Your proposal can address one or more of the following areas:

• raw materials
• advanced cell materials
• cell design and components
• process and manufacturing tools
• quality control and diagnostics
• testing, simulation and digital tools

You must demonstrate how your technology will address at least one of the following requirements in your target application:

• reduce cost, taking into consideration total cost of ownership and the respective supply chain
• increase performance parameters
• increase safety
• increase predictability
• reduce environmental impact
• supports regulations and standards for the target market

We are particularly interested in funding projects from the groups below:

1. UK equipment manufacturing and process capability for cell and battery production. We encourage projects that will support this by:

• increased equipment manufacturing and process capability for advanced production process and new battery technologies
• manufacturing process with lower environmental impact, cost and improved yield
• enhanced digital capability for optimisation and quality control
• developing manufacturing processes that scale efficiently to meet growing demand

2. UK battery reuse, recovery and recycling.We encourage projects that will support this by:

• process capability of end-of-life batteries
• process capability of cell and batteries manufacturing scrap
• high purity black-mass production and processing
• waste stream and low value recyclate material processing

3. UK battery sector with localised battery supply chain and industrial resilience. We encourage projects that will support this to:

• meet international regulations and standards
• exploit technologies to strengthen UK supply chain
• develop an end to end bill of process and provenance
• develop new technologies and business model to remove barriers for commercialisation
• boost sustainability and resilience globally
• reduce reliance on critical minerals

For feasibility studies we encourage applications that:

• trial advanced and very novel battery technologies for the first time
• support trial and adaptation of existing materials, processes or equipment for application in battery technologies or the battery supply chain
• exploit scientific advances focusing on product or process commercialisation
• trial novel approaches, tools and methods

Your project can target performance requirements for at least one of the listed sectors and can support emerging use cases or cross sector applicability, including sector as defence, aerospace and battery energy storage:

• automotive sector including on and off-highway vehicles, motorsports and niche automotive
• aerospace
• battery energy storage systems
• rail
• maritime
• personal mobility

You must clearly demonstrate your understanding of the target sector and industry and market demand covering UK, Europe and global in your application.

We are not funding projects that are:

• not aligned with the Industrial Strategy
• related to electrochemical supercapacitors, hybrid supercapacitors, lead-acid batteries and nickel-metal hydride battery
• related to primary batteries (non-rechargeable batteries)
• research projects or projects which are academic intensive​
• business as usual R&D projects​
• non-collaborative projects ​
• projects with over reliance on subcontracting
• aiming to secure funding for capital equipment as a primary focus​
• not demonstrating considerations of the cost, market, environmental impact, and business requirements of the technology​
• focussing primarily on physical system integration of battery technologies, for example, into vehicles or energy storage systems

Innovate UK Business Connect will hold a briefing on Wednesday 29 October, 10am-11:30am, covering both strands of this competition: click here to register for a place. A recording and slides will be available afterwards.

If you would like help to find a collaboration partner or subcontractor, contact Innovate UK Business Connect’s Batteries team.