Contracts for Innovation: Cyber scale in critical sectors

To lead a project, you can:

• be an organisation of any size
• work alone or with the subcontracted skills and expertise of others from business, research organisations, research and technology organisations, or the third sector (charities, social enterprises and voluntary groups)

Contracts will be awarded to a single legal entity only. All of the project work and key deliverables must be completed by the applicant and be carried out in the UK. You can use subcontractors, but they must be based in the UK and used only for specialist skills.

Projects must:

• start by 1 September 2026
• end by 31 August 2027
• last 12 months
• have total costs of no more than £300,000, inclusive of VAT

All of the project work and key deliverables must be completed by the applicant and be carried out in the UK.

Your application must have at least 50% of the contract value attributed directly and exclusively to R&D services, including solution exploration and design. R&D can also include prototyping and field-testing the product or service. This lets you incorporate the results of your exploration and design and demonstrate that you can produce in quantity to acceptable quality standards.

The aim of this competition is to support cyber security organisations in their growth efforts by demonstrating the operation and value of their innovative solutions in real world environments within critical sector organisations..

Funding is targeted at promising cyber security organisations, with solutions at Technology Readiness Level (TRL) 7 and potential to commercialise and grow at scale.

By the end of the project innovations will have:

• demonstrated user acceptability and market fit through use in a real operational environment
• been improved based on feedback from end users
• a completed business plan and a development case study for commercialisation of the solution

In this competition you must work closely with potential end-users and customers in the critical sectors, conducting the R&D to progress your project toward commercialisation.

Your project must focus on one or more of the following challenges:

• proactive cyber security defence of Critical National Infrastructure (CNI) systems, including operation and incident response
• advanced and innovative cyber security solutions for the detection and eviction of sophisticated actors from CNI networks
• innovative threat hunting solutions for CNI organisations
• advanced and innovative cyber security solutions for legacy system vulnerabilities in CNI

Your project must:

• address cyber security challenges of organisations in the critical sectors
• deploy and operate your solution in a real operational environment of critical sector organisations
• achieve a Technology Readiness Level 8 or above at the end of your project
• establish and evidence acceptability by critical sector organisations
• complete a comprehensive business model and plan for commercialisation
• capture success case metrics and develop a use case to be used for future commercialisation
• understand any standards or homologation needed in the target sector

We welcome and prioritise projects from start up and SMEs in early stages of growth.

You must demonstrate a credible and practical route to market, so your application must include a plan to commercialise your results.

Contracts will be given to successful applicants.

Your project must focus on one of the following critical sectors:

• Chemicals
• Communications
• Emergency Services
• Energy
• Food
• Health
• Space
• Transport
• Water

We will not fund projects that:

• are not original in scope and duplicate someone else’s work
• do not have an application for cyber security in critical sectors
• cannot be demonstrated in relevant or operational environment
• focus on developing frameworks and methodologies
• consist of consultancy services

Innovate UK will hold an online briefing at 11am on Thursday 7 May: click here to register for a place. A recording and slides will be available afterwards.

If you would like help to find a subcontractor or have other queries, you can contact Innovate UK Business Connect’s Cybersecurity team.