To lead a collaborative project your organisation must be a UK registered business of any size. The consortium must contain at least one UK registered micro, small or medium sized enterprise (SME) claiming grant funding on this application.

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)

No single organisation can claim more than 70% of the total project costs.

A UK registered business can lead on one application and/or be included as a collaborator in any number of applications.

An academic institution, research and technology organisation (RTO), charity, not for profit or public sector organisation can collaborate on any number of applications.

Your project must:

• have grant funding request of between £500,000 and £4 million (this grant can cover up to 70% of total project costs, depending on business size)
• last between 12 and 36 months
• not start before 1 May 2027
• end by 31 March 2031

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.

Your project must demonstrate how the proposed innovation will do at least one of the following:

• enable improvements to manufacturing processes for large-scale battery cell production
• expand industrial development of battery module technologies
• develop high performance and efficient battery pack and battery management system (BMS) technologies
• reduce dependence on overseas cell and pack manufacturers and strengthen UK supply chain resilience
• demonstrate the results of AI supported design across cell and pack development
• support scale-up from laboratory to pilot and pre-commercial manufacturing within the UK

Your project must demonstrate a credible pathway and deliver value-add to the UK, for example:

• scale-up and manufacturing deployment for battery cells in the UK
• creation or expansion of UK cell manufacturing technologies
• development or expansion of UK high performance cell and module technologies
• creation of high performance battery packs and battery management systems
• creation or expansion of industrial capability, facilities or production capacity across the battery value chain
• strengthening UK supply chain resilience across both cell manufacturing and pack manufacturing
• delivery of long term economic and environmental benefits, aligned with net zero objectives

Your R&D activities can include, but are not limited to:

• improved efficiency and CO2 reduction or offset from battery cell manufacturing processes
• automated cell manufacturing technologies
• development of dry coating methods
• end of line testing technologies
• development of modular and replicable module and cell systems
• next generation AI supported BMS systems
• efficient module and pack joining methods
• structural battery packs
• utilisation of lightweight materials in battery packs
• digital tools to accelerate experiment design

Your project must clearly state which group your application aligns with: cell manufacturing; module manufacturing; or pack manufacturing and battery management systems (BMS). (See below for the scope of each group.)

Your project can target performance requirements for at least one of the listed sectors and can support emerging use cases or cross sector applicability including:

• automotive sector including on and off-highway vehicles, motorsports and niche automotive
• aerospace
• battery energy storage systems
• rail
• maritime
• defence: the innovation must be dual use with clear relevance beyond defence application

You must clearly demonstrate your understanding of the target sector and industry and market demand covering UK, Europe and global in your application.

Innovations that strengthen UK competitiveness in cell manufacturing

We encourage projects that:

• enable scale-up from laboratory to gigafactory levels to expand UK large scale cell manufacturing capacity
• integrate digital tools, in-line diagnostics, and digital twins to optimize efficiency and reduce scrap
• reduce energy demand, waste, and environmental impacts across cell production
• support the industrialisation of new cell chemistries and formats, pouch, cylindrical, prismatic
• integrate design for manufacturing approaches to improve yield and reliability
• advance electrode fabrication, cell assembly, and formation processes
• produce high performance stacking and winding patterns
• increase the speed of tab and enclosure joining
• improve solid electrolyte interface (SEI) layer consistency at high production rates
• develop novel ageing and testing capabilities to reduce conditioning time
• develop tools, equipment, and automation solutions for production efficiency
• deploy digital tools such as AI to improve cell development time

Innovations that strengthen UK competitiveness in module manufacturing

We encourage projects that:

• advance cell to module interconnect fabrication, structural bonding, and module housing assembly
• produce high performance busbar configurations for example automated laser welding patterns
• increase the speed and precision of cell positioning, clamping, and electrical joining
• improve the consistency of thermal interface material (TIM) application at high production rates
• develop novel end of line (EOL) electrical testing and insulation monitoring

Innovations that strengthen UK competitiveness in pack manufacturing

We encourage projects that:

• innovate in pack design, structural systems, or fast assembly techniques
• improve safety systems, early warning diagnostics and fault tolerant designs
• develop advanced BMS functionality, state of health or state of charge algorithms
• create thermal management innovations including new materials, architectures or control systems
• apply simulation, digital twins or data driven optimisation for real world performance
• enable circularity ready or end of life friendly design
• implement digital tools such as AI to improve performance and safety
• support application specific optimisation for automotive, aerospace, maritime, rail, defence or stationary storage

Your project can focus on one or more of the following:

• cell manufacturing
• module manufacturing
• pack manufacturing and battery management systems (BMS)

We are not funding projects that are:

• not aligned with the Industrial Strategy
• for personal mobility and consumer electronics
• early stage discovery research
• primary focused on battery second life use
• focused on material extraction and refining

Innovate UK Business Connect will hold an online briefing from 10am-noon on Wednesday 16 September. A recording and slides will be available afterwards.

We will also hold an online surgery on Tuesday 29 September 2026, 10am to 11am.

Register for a place on the briefing and/or surgery webinars here.

To support the competition, we have an online networking platform, B2Match, to help innovators connect with like-minded individuals and form collaborative partnerships to achieve their goals. We strongly encourage you to create a B2Match profile to enable you to meet with other collaborative innovators.

If you would like help to find a collaboration partner, advice on which strand to apply for, or to register on the B2Match platform, contact Innovate UK Business Connect’s Energy team.