Innovation in Professional and Financial Services

Innovate UK, part of UK Research and Innovation, will invest up to £7 million in innovation projects. These will be to support the development of new technology enabled service within Professional and Financial Services.

The aim of this competition is to advance the Professional and Financial Services sectors by supporting them in the creation and adoption of digital approaches and new digitally supported services.

This competition is split into 2 strands:

• Innovation in Professional and Financial Services – collaboration
• Innovation in Professional and Financial Services – single applicants (SMEs only)

It is the responsibility of the applicant to ensure they are applying to the correct strand for their project. If you apply to the wrong competition you will be made ineligible and will not be sent for assessment, you cannot transfer your application.

Your proposal must show how you will help these sectors:

• to deliver better products and services
• increase access to these services
• make these services more effective for their customers

We intend to launch a competition aimed at increasing access to data within these sectors shortly so that will not be an area we are looking to support in this competition.

Your project must:

• have a total grant funding request between £50,000 and £200,000 for single applicants
• have a total grant funding request between £50,000 and £500,000 for collaborations
• start by 1 April 2023
• last between 6 and 18 months
• carry out all of its project work in the UK
• intend to exploit the results from or in the UK

To be a sole applicant for the project (strand 1), your organisation must be a UK registered micro, small or medium-sized enterprise (SME).

To lead a project in strand 2 your organisation must:

• be a UK registered business of any size
• collaborate with other eligible UK registered organisations
• if you are a large organisation, include at least one grant claiming micro, small or medium-sized enterprise (SME)

Academic institutions and research and technology organisations (RTO) cannot lead.

A business can apply as the lead for multiple applications across the 2 strands of this competition, but only one successful project will be funded. Any organisation can collaborate in any number of applications.

Scope (both strands)

The aim of this competition is to advance the Professional and Financial Services sectors by supporting them in the creation and adoption of new digitally supported services.

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

• legal services
• accountancy and audit
• insurance
• open finance innovation
• financial planning and support for consumers and SME’s
• financial regulatory compliance and financial crime prevention (such as fraud and anti money laundering)
• payments and transactions

Your project must include the following:

• clear consideration of user experience and design
• consideration of broader, non-technical aspects including ethics, privacy, transparency and regulatory requirements
• consideration of barriers to adoption within these sectors and approaches to address them
• quantify how the solution will be exploited

Your project must address innovation in the relevant areas.

We are particularly encouraging applications that:

• are for projects that increase access of the services to underserved or excluded communities, individuals, and businesses
• cover more than one sector in scope
• address broad sector wide needs
• involve collaborations with non-grant funded professional and financial service providers
• are multidisciplinary and include social science as well as science and engineering

Exclusions

We are not funding projects:

• that are quantum technology development (use of existing quantum technologies in delivery of a service is in scope)
• that focus on climate finance
• that focus on development of new cryptocurrencies
• that focus on green finance
• that are focused on increasing access to data for professional and financial Services
• that do not meet the competition eligibility or scope
• where other Innovate UK funding support is available and more appropriate

Briefing event

Innovate UK KTN will hold a briefing event (covering both strands) on Thursday 8th September, 9am-1pm. Click here to register for a place. A recording will be available after the event.