Watch our competition briefing, recorded on 8 April, to learn more about the opportunity, eligibility and full scope, and have the chance to ask the team any questions you may have.

UK registered organisations can apply to this challenge to develop near term, testable solutions that advance the UK’s Secure & Resilient and Sustainable Network Grand Challenges through deployable prototypes on UK testbeds. This competition is funded by Department for Science, Innovation and Technology (DSIT).

Competition details

This competition is part of the ACT R&D Programme, announced in the Digital and Technologies Sector Plan under the UK’s Industrial Strategy.

The ACT R&D Programme is a key part of delivering this ambition and it will use a range of interventions to:

• support the UK’s world leading academic research base and keep the UK at the forefront of ACT research
• provide early stage, pre-commercial funding to help move ideas from research towards commercial viability
• support challenge focused solution development so government funding tackles real world needs, drawing on UK industry expertise and investment to develop ACT products and services
• support the growth and scale up of industrial solutions by helping UK SMEs attract private capital and expand the UK’s global ACT footprint.

Where relevant it is recommended that projects will utilise the national labs and facilities that are available and relevant to the projects. This includes, but is not limited to the Catapult Network and the Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council (EPSRC) funded Future Connectivity Hubs and the Joint Open Infrastructure for Networks Research (JOINER) testbed.

Learn more about the competition and read the full brief here (closing date: 3 June 2026).

We warmly recommend watching the briefing event to explore the full details of the competition, and learn more about the scope and eligibility of this opportunity.

There is also a simultaneous call for Solution Development for ACT (closing 13 May 2026). Specific themes for this call are: Secure and Resilient Networks; Sustainable Networks; Assured ISAC Systems and Integration; Advanced RF Architectures & Components; and RF enabled Applications with Civil Pull. If you have innovations related to any of these areas, click here for details of the Solution Development funding call.