To work alone or lead a collaborative project your organisation must be a UK registered business of any size.

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)

If your project is collaborative, no one partner can account for more than 70% of the eligible costs.

A business can only lead on one application but can be included as a collaborator in two further applications.

If a business is not leading any application, it can collaborate in any number of applications.

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

Your project must:

• have a grant funding request of between £50,000 and £100,000
• be no more than nine months in duration
• start by 1 November 2026
• end by 31 July 2027
• provide a letter of support for the project from an end user working within one of the eight growth driving sectors identified in the UK’s Modern Industrial Strategy (IS-8)

In your application you must upload a signed letter of support from an end user. The end user must be operating within one of the eight growth driving sectors identified in the UK’s Modern Industrial Strategy (IS-8) sectors.

The letter of support must:

• be on the headed paper of the supporting organisation
• be addressed to the applicant
• make reference to the specific project application title
• identify which of the IS-8 sectors the supporting organisation operates within
• include the signature and title (position and role) of the person providing the letter of support

The letter of support must explain, from the perspective of the supporting organisation, the potential applications and potential benefits of your material innovation. It must also outline any future barriers and challenges they foresee to adoption in the IS-8 sector they are working within. This may include factors such as functionality, technical performance or sustainability.

For the letter of support we will not accept:

• copies of emails or other e-communication tools, for example, Teams chat, between the applicant and a third party, even if these refer to the project application
• letters or other documents between the applicant and a third party that do not directly refer to the project application, for example, purchase orders, invoices
• other forms of agreement between the applicant and a third party, for example, Heads of Agreement, Memorandum of Understanding, Joint Development Agreement, Letters of Intent, supply agreements, commercial contracts, formal partnership agreements

The aim of this competition is to speed the translation of advanced materials innovations toward industrial adoption in three prioritised high growth themes and one strategic opportunity theme.

Your project must focus on one of the three prioritised high growth opportunity theme areas derived from the National Materials Innovation Strategy or the strategic opportunity theme area; metamaterials and metasurfaces. See the specific theme section to view the full list of these themes.

We recognise that the metamaterials and metasurfaces strategic opportunity theme overlaps with some areas of the three prioritised high growth opportunity themes. As guidance, if your material innovation is fundamentally based upon a metamaterial or metasurface technology then you should apply under Theme 4: Metamaterials and Metasurfaces.

In your application you must demonstrate how the project helps enable your materials innovation to translate more rapidly to industrial adoption.

You must:

• identify the specific sector and applications being targeted
• clearly describe the opportunity for the technology to be applied
• describe any future barriers and challenges you foresee to adoption

You must also demonstrate how adoption of your materials innovation contributes to broader UK net zero targets. This could be through sustainable supply chains and feedstocks, reduction in energy consumption, emissions reduction and resource efficiency.

Theme 1. Future healthcare solutions

We are seeking material innovation projects for:

• biocompatible materials: this includes the development, characterisation and validation of biocompatible materials with application specific properties for targeted therapies (medical use)
• bioelectronic materials: this includes the development, characterisation and validation for medical use of bioelectronic material solutions that enable systems to directly interface with biological systems (in-vivo or in-vitro) to help prevent, diagnose, monitor and treat disease and to support patient rehabilitation

Theme 2. Sustainable structural systems

We are seeking material innovation projects for:

• circularity: this includes circularity in high value structural materials such as speciality grade steels and other performance metals, high performance metallic alloys and fibre reinforced polymer composites
• surface engineering: this includes materials innovations that enable improved performance of surface protection materials and tribological solutions to extend technology, asset or infrastructure lifetime, and control surface or bulk degradation of structural materials in real world conditions
• design and deployment: this includes innovations to improve the predictability, design and deployment of high performance structural materials, enabling enhanced resistance to surface or bulk degradation
• extreme environments: this includes the development and refinement of high performance structural material systems and functional materials for specific extreme and multi-extreme conditions such as thermal and radiation extremes

Theme 3. Power electronics and connectivity

We are seeking material innovation projects for:

• wide and ultra-wide bandgap materials: this includes the development and integration of wide and ultra-wide bandgap materials to enable higher temperature and voltage operation over current generation materials
• advanced connectivity: this includes the development of materials innovations for advanced connectivity and communication systems enabling high efficiency (energy, capacity, coverage and spectrum use) in communication systems including 5G, 6G, optical, RF, IR and RADAR

Theme 4. Metamaterials and metasurfaces

We are seeking material innovation projects enabling commercialisation, growth and dual use outcomes of metamaterials and metasurfaces.

Proposals in any of these sub-themes should address relevant aspects of the value chain. This could include, for example, demonstrating technology concepts for application and market opportunity, addressing technical barriers or enablers in relevant manufacturing or design and metrology tools and methods to enable efficient adoption.

• future telecommunications and advanced connectivity: this includes the scaling, commercialisation and application of reconfigurable, intelligent metamaterial and metasurface solutions and related devices and coatings
• convergent electronic-photonic technologies: this includes innovations in metamaterials and metasurfaces to enable integration with semiconductors and photonics
• thermal or mechanical metamaterials: this includes thermal or mechanical metamaterials (large or small length scales) to enable applications in, for example, robotics and autonomous systems
• energy security and net zero: this includes metamaterials or metasurfaces enabling advances in renewable energy sources and energy storage
• healthcare: this includes metamaterials or metasurfaces enabling advances in healthcare such as biosensors, biomonitoring, imaging, diagnostics, biomedical devices, stimuli responsive systems, advanced prosthetics or acoustic management in clinical settings

For the purposes of the strategic opportunity theme, your project must demonstrate that it meets the definition of a metamaterial or metasurface as developed by the metamaterials community and the UKRI UK Metamaterials Network:

• a metamaterial is a 3D structure with a response or function due to the collective effect of meta-atom elements that is not possible to achieve conventionally with any individual constituent material
• a metasurface is a 2D version of a metamaterial where the structural elements are confined to a 2D plane

Note: The response or function of a metamaterial results from the ensemble effects of designed and engineered meta-atom elements. These can take many forms, for example:

• the response or function may be electromagnetic; photonic, RF and microwave, terahertz (THz)
• acoustic; audio, ultrasonic, vibrational
• magnetic, mechanical or structural, thermal, or chemical

Innovate UK will hold an online briefing, 10.30am-noon, on Thursday 7 May: click here to register for a place. A recording and slides will be available afterwards.

If you would like help to find a collaboration partner, or have queries about which theme and sub-theme to apply under, you can contact Innovate UK Business Connect’s Materials team for advice.