Innovate UK Smart grants: November 2024
UK registered organisations can apply for a share of up to £15m for game changing, commercially viable R&D that can significantly impact the UK economy.
Opportunity Details
When
Registration Opens
14/11/2024
Registration Closes
22/01/2025
Award
6-18 month projects must have total costs of £100k-£500k; 19-24 month projects must have total costs of £100k-£1m. Up to 70% of these costs can be covered, depending on project type and business size.
Organisation
Innovate UK
Innovate UK, part of UK Research and Innovation, is investing up to £15 million in the best game changing and world leading ideas, designed for swift, successful commercialisation.
Innovate UK’s Smart grants programme is intrinsically positioned, by design, as a focused and uniquely differentiated product to support and propel the government’s five key missions:
- driving economic growth
- advancing clean energy
- enhancing public safety
- expanding opportunities
- strengthening healthcare
Smart grants enable UK businesses to lead the way in solving the most pressing challenges and ensuring a prosperous future for the UK. By fostering cutting edge projects showing the highest potential return based on evidence, Smart grants also play an important part in helping to create substantial economic impact and drives productivity improvements across the UK, ensuring that growth benefits all regions.
This competition has a focused scope and eligibility criteria to support micro, small or medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) and their partners in developing genuinely new innovations with significant potential for rapid economic return to the UK. The application process reflects the importance of obtaining economic benefits from public funding, and the potential for successful commercialisation, growth, and exports.
Proposals must be business focused and show deliverable, realistic, adequately resourced plans to achieve return on investment, growth and market share, following project completion.
Applications can come from any area of technology and be applied to any part of the economy.
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To lead a project or work alone your organisation must:
- be a UK registered SME if you want to work alone
- be a UK registered business of any size, or a research and technology organisation (RTO) if your proposal is collaborative
- include at least one grant claiming micro, small or medium-sized enterprise (SME) if you are a large business or RTO and wish to collaborate with other UK registered businesses, research organisations, academic organisations, public sector organisations or charities
If the lead organisation is an RTO it must collaborate with at least two businesses (one SME, and one business of any size) and there must be a credible route to market for the output of the project.
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)
A business or research and technology organisation (RTO) can only lead on one application but can be included as a collaborator in two further applications. This limit extends to current owners, directors and persons of significant interest, prohibiting them from leading multiple submissions through different entities.
All project partners can collaborate on any number of applications.
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Your project must:
- start by 1 July 2025
- end by 30 June 2027
- include at least one micro, small or medium enterprise (SME) as the lead or a collaborative grant claiming partner
- follow specific rules depending on its duration
- carry out all of its project work in the UK
- intend to exploit the results from or in the UK
If your project’s duration is 6 to 18 months, it must have total eligible project costs between £100,000 and £500,000, and can be single or collaborative.
If your project’s duration is 19 to 24 months, it must have total eligible project costs between £100,000 and £1 million, and must be collaborative.
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The Innovate UK Smart grant supports micro, small or medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) and their partners to develop the best game changing and world leading innovative R&D projects. It offers funding where other opportunities are not available or appropriate, and where timing is key to ensure swift and successful commercialisation, post project completion.
To be in scope your proposal must demonstrate:
- a ground breaking and innovative idea for brand new products, processes or services
- an idea that is significantly different from already available products, processes or services globally
- an idea that is set for rapid commercialisation following project completion
- clear potential to positively impact the UK’s position, productivity and competitiveness within the global economy
- a clear, evidence-based business plan to deliver significant economic impact, return on investment (ROI) and growth through commercialisation, as soon as possible after project completion
- why Smart funding is the right potential funding for your project, and the journey you have already been on to reach the point of application
- a team with the necessary skills and expertise to deliver the project successfully and on time, and to achieve rapid commercialisation
- awareness of all the main risks the project will face with realistic management, mitigation and impact minimisation plans for each risk
- sound, practical financial plans and timelines that represent good value for money, including the funding of post-project activities
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Your project must focus on:
- taking customer and user needs into account to deliver more desirable and useful solutions
- identifying who is ready to buy your innovation
- being developed, planned and resourced beyond the end of the Innovate UK funded project, taking into account the focus of any project partners and their existing commitments
- fitting in with and complementing your ongoing business planning and development, product offerings and organisational structure to maximise chances of success
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An online briefing event will be held on Thursday 21 November 2024 at 11:30am: click here for the joining link.
Briefing slides will be available to download after the event.
If you would like help to find a collaboration partner or have any other queries, please contact your sector team at Innovate UK Business Connect.
SMART grants will not fund projects where other Innovate UK funding support is available and more appropriate. Your sector team at Innovate UK Business Connect will be able to advise on whether this is the case for your application.