This competition is open to single applicants and collaborations.

To work alone your organisation must be a UK registered business of any size, RTO or public sector organisation.

To lead a collaborative project your organisation must be one of the above, or an academic institution. If the lead organisation is an Academic institution it must collaborate with at least one business of any size.

In a collaborative project, no one organisation can account for more than 70% of the eligible costs.

Your project must:

• have a grant funding request between £500,000 and £2 million
• last 42 months
• start by 1 October 2026
• end on 31 March 2030

Any organisation receiving funding must carry out its project work in the UK, intend to exploit the results in the UK, and spend most of the funding within the UK.

In a collaborative project, no one organisation can account for more than 70% of the eligible costs.

Your proposal must:

• detail how you will convene the network of Robotics Adoption Hubs nationally and act as secretariat for hub leader meetings
• demonstrate how you will develop a self-sustaining central convening body by the end of the project

The funding will support the creation of a central convening body for the Robotics Adoption Hubs that are being allocated through a separate competition.

The aim of this Robotics Adoption Central Convening Body competition is to close the knowledge gap that slows down the adoption of robotics. By accelerating adoption, the convening body should help improve productivity, safety, competitiveness and sustainability. It should also support better health outcomes, stronger infrastructure and contribute to economic growth.

Central convener will at a minimum:

• share knowledge across the network of physical hubs through collecting and sharing success stories and lessons learned
• create a website for the programme as a landing page or front door for the hubs and forward enquiries to the physical hubs
• publicise the robotics adoption programme to end users
• act as a secretariat to convene regular meetings of the robotics adoption hub project leads
• coordinate the robotics adoption hubs in creating materials and guides with standardised branding
• aim to be self-sustaining beyond the programme
• support all physical adoption hubs equally across the range of regions and sectors
• incorporate learnings from international activity, including technology trends, market developments and adoption barriers
• be a source of information and guidance on robotics developing and sharing knowledge of the UK ecosystem of suppliers, integrators and courses

For this competition, robotics is defined broadly. It includes drones operating on land, sea and air; autonomous plant and service robots; and industrial robots or automated machinery that use sensors, actuators and control software. Robotics does not include systems that are only software-based.

Your proposal must:

• detail how you will convene the network of Robotics Adoption Hubs nationally and act as secretariat for hub leader meetings
• demonstrate how you will develop a self-sustaining central convening body by the end of the project

Innovate UK will hold an online briefing at 11am on Friday 12 June: 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, contact Innovate UK Business Connect’s Robotics team.