To work alone or lead a collaborative project your organisation must be a UK registered business of any size.

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)

If the project is collaborative, no one partner can account for more than 70% of the project costs.

A business can only lead on one application but can be included as a collaborator in two further applications.

If a business or other organisation is not leading any application, it can collaborate in any number of applications.

Your project must:

• have a grant funding request of between £50,000 and £100,000
• start by 1 May 2026
• end by 31 January 2027
• be no more than nine months in duration
• provide a letter of support for the project from an end user working within one of the eight growth driving sectors identified in the UK’s Modern Industrial Strategy (IS-8) sectors

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 speed the translation of advanced materials innovations toward industrial adoption in the six key high growth themes and one strategic opportunity theme (see below).

Your project must focus on one of the six high growth opportunity theme areas from the National Materials Innovation Strategy or the strategic opportunity theme area; metamaterials and metasurfaces.

We recognise that the metamaterials and metasurfaces theme has overlap with the six high growth opportunity themes. As guidance, if your material innovation is based on a metamaterial or metasurface technology then you should apply under theme 7.

In your application you must demonstrate how the project helps enable your materials innovation to translate more rapidly to industrial adoption.

You must:

• identify the specific sector and applications being targeted
• clearly describe the opportunity for the technology to be applied
• describe any future barriers and challenges you foresee to adoption

Additionally you must demonstrate how adoption of your materials innovation contributes to broader UK net zero targets, for example, through reduction in energy consumption, emissions reduction and resource efficiency.

In your application you must upload a signed letter of support, on headed paper, from a potential end user of your materials innovation. The end user must be operating within one of the eight growth driving sectors identified in the UK’s Modern Industrial Strategy (IS-8) sectors. The letter must explain the potential application of your material innovation.

Your project must focus on one of the following:

High growth opportunity themes

1. Net zero energy solutions

We are seeking material innovation projects enabling:

• next generation battery chemistries or materials to improve performance and diversify supply chains
• large scale electrochemical energy generation and conversion, including hydrogen, such as electrode, catalysis and membrane material innovations to improve performance and reduce environmental impacts
• widespread hydrogen deployment, including barriers, coatings, materials to enable deployment in extreme environments, and materials to enable hydrogen to X.
• industrial or domestic heat exchange, heat storage and waste heat recovery
• energy harvesting solutions for higher efficiency solar PV and specialist applications, including health, battery-less mobile electronic devices, and sensors
• advanced nuclear fuels

2. Future healthcare

We are seeking material innovation projects enabling:

• biocompatible materials with specific properties, such as structural or scaffolding, porous, conductivity, patient derived, injectable, 3D printable, patient specific and drug eluting materials for targeted therapies
• bioelectronic and biocompatible materials leading to long term implantable (over 10 years) solutions
• bioelectronic and biocompatible materials with mechanical properties, similar to tissue, for interfacing electronics with the body
• bioelectronic and biocompatible materials which improve sensor performance in vivo

3. Structural innovations

We are seeking material innovation projects enabling:

• low carbon construction such as low carbon cement or concrete, construction materials for improved energy efficiency, improved occupier health or extended in-use lifetime
• sustainable composite systems designed and optimised for multiple applications, longer lifecycles, recycling and re-use
• metallic materials that are strong, durable, and compatible with circular economy principles, as well as enhanced performance and tailored properties for application in new and emerging high volume applications
• speciality high performance metallic materials to enable capability in key UK priority technologies, such as clean energy and health
• advanced technical ceramics for a diverse range of applications in high value ceramic market segments, such as electronics, healthcare and structural

4. Advanced surface technologies and materials durability

We are seeking material innovation projects enabling:

• improved surface protection performance or tribological material solutions to extend technology or infrastructure lifetime
• material systems and functional materials for extreme conditions, especially thermal and radiation extremes, as well as multi-extreme environments

5. Next generation electronics, telecommunications and sensors

We are seeking material innovation projects enabling:

• wide and ultrawide bandgap materials for power electronics
• solutions across; quantum computing and communications, quantum sensing and imaging, and quantum positioning, navigation and timing (PNT)
• higher e­fficiency communication systems, for example, 5G, optical, radio frequency (RF), infrared (IR), radio detection and ranging (RADAR)

6. Consumer products, packaging and specialist polymers

We are seeking material innovation projects enabling:

• bulk sustainable plastic packaging
• bio-based, biodegradable, sustainable packaging
• high value, specialist sustainable elastomeric materials to support high growth IS-8 sectors
• sustainability through extended in life service, end of life processing or recyclability of high volume elastomeric materials

7. Metamaterials and metasurfaces

We are seeking material innovation projects enabling:

• reduced SWaP (Size, Weight, and Power): metamaterials or metasurfaces which enable the reduction in the SWaP demands of systems, reducing need for traditional trade offs
• future telecommunications: metamaterials or metasurfaces enabling advances in communication technologies, healthcare, for instance, applications in 6G and satellite communications
• energy security and net zero: metamaterials or metasurfaces enabling advances in renewable energy sources through, for instance, reduced system power consumption through acoustic and thermal management
• healthcare: metamaterials or metasurfaces enabling advances in healthcare through, for instance, reduced cost biosensors, real time biomonitoring, point of care diagnostics, advanced prosthetics or acoustic management in clinical settings

For the purposes of the strategic opportunity theme, projects must demonstrate they meet the definition of a metamaterial as developed by the metamaterials community:

• a metamaterial is a 3D structure with a response or function due to the collective effect of meta-atom elements that is not possible to achieve conventionally with any individual constituent material
• a metasurface is a 2D version of a metamaterial where the structural elements are confined to a 2D plane

Note: The response or function of a metamaterial results from the ensemble effects of designed and engineered meta-atom elements.

These can take many forms, for example:

• the response or function may be electromagnetic; photonic, RF and microwave, terahertz (THz)
• acoustic; audio, ultrasonic, vibrational
• magnetic, mechanical or structural, thermal, or chemical

An online briefing will be held on Wednesday 5 November, 2-4pm: 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, and/or if you are unsure which theme to apply under, contact Innovate UK Business Connect’s Materials team for support.