To lead a project your organisation must be a UK registered micro or small business.

If your business has been funded directly by Innovate UK previously, you are not eligible to apply for this competition. If however, you have received funding in an academic capacity (pre-company formation) directly from Innovate UK Business Growth or a Catapult scheme, or the ASAP (Academic Start-up Accelerator Programme), you are still eligible to apply for this competition.

If you are unsure, contact our customer support team by email as soon as possible before the submission deadline.

An eligible UK business can submit one application only. We will only award grant funding to one project per business.

Grant funding in this competition is awarded as Minimal Financial assistance (MFA): you must not have received more public funding than the £315,000 limit in the last three financial years combined.

Your project must:

• have total project costs and a grant funding request of between £25,000 and £50,000
• have total project costs that equal your grant funding request
• start by 1 November 2026
• end by 30 April 2027
• last between three and six months

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.

Subcontractors are allowed in this competition.

The aim of this competition is to accelerate the development, demonstration, and commercialisation of next generation communications technologies that strengthen the UK’s security, resilience, sustainability, and long term competitiveness.

This will help to address the UK Government’s Advanced Connectivity Technologies (ACT) R&D Programme’s objective, namely, to foster a thriving ecosystem that supports ACT companies to grow, scale, compete internationally and strengthen the sector’s contribution to UK economic performance.

Your project must demonstrate innovation that leads to 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.

In your application, you must demonstrate that you:

• have an innovative idea
• need public funding
• have the capability to deliver the project

We are particularly interested in how your proposal will help you:

• develop both your ambitious idea and your business
• create a new revenue stream, for example, new products, services or IP
• evidence and enable your market, funding and commercialisation plans
• show what is feasible in helping you decide whether to pursue your idea further
• catalyse further innovation on your path to commercial success
• respond to changing market conditions

This challenge focuses on development of solutions that will position the UK as a leader in secure communications, underpinning critical national infrastructure and economic sectors.

Solutions will protect networks against interception and cyber threats, ensuring data confidentiality within legal frameworks. This includes the integration of terrestrial and non-terrestrial networks to expand coverage and provide resilience.

The key outcome is to create networks that are trustworthy, reliable, and able to withstand disruption, while preparing for emerging risks.

You must demonstrate how your technology addresses at least one of the following network challenges:

• reliability, availability, and continuity: Ensure uninterrupted service during faults, cyberattacks, natural disasters, and extreme events, including power outages and climate related shocks
• rapid recovery and adaptability: Reduce recovery times through self healing, automation, AI driven detection or response, and adaptive reconfiguration of networks and spectrum during disruption
• end to end security and zero trust: Strengthen security across devices, access points, open interfaces, and core infrastructure, including disaggregated or open architectures
• future threat readiness: Prepare for advanced threat environments, including quantum safe cryptography, contested environments, and evolving cyber risks
• secure supply chains and interoperability: Assure hardware and software provenance and enable secure multi-vendor interoperability
• spectrum security and robustness: Detect and mitigate interference, spoofing, and jamming; improve spectrum resilience for critical services

This challenge will drive innovation in technologies that reduce the environmental impact of telecoms while ensuring that finite spectrum is used as effectively as possible.

The key outcome is to create sustainable, energy efficient networks that contribute to the UK’s clean power commitments.

You must demonstrate how your technology addresses at least one of the following network challenges:

• energy efficiency, cost reduction, and carbon impact: Reduce energy consumption per bit of data transmitted, lower operational costs, and minimise emissions, for example, kgCO₂e per site year, across network infrastructure
• maximising use of finite spectrum: Improve spectral efficiency (more data per Hz) and enable multi-functional use of spectrum, for example, Integrated Sensing and Communications (ISAC) where spectrum supports both connectivity and sensing, alongside scalable spectrum sharing approaches
• adaptive and renewable energy use: Dynamically scale energy use with demand and integrate renewable energy sources, for example, solar, wind, into network sites
• thermal and infrastructure efficiency: Reduce the energy required to operate and cool networks through more efficient system design, including improved cooling techniques, advanced semiconductors, and selective use of photonic technologies in place of electronic processing to reduce heat generation
• efficient and multi-functional transport networks: Develop transport solutions, for example, fibre and backhaul, that reduce loss and latency, while enabling additional functions such as combined data and power transmission or more efficient shared infrastructure use
• material efficiency and lifecycle transparency: Reduce material use and waste through efficient design, lightweighting, and extended component lifetimes, supported by lifecycle reporting, for example, digital product passports

Innovate UK Business Connect held a briefing event on 9 July: click here to watch the recording and download the slides.

If you would like advice on your application, contact Innovate UK Business Connect’s Digital team.