To lead a collaborative project your organisation must be a UK registered business of any size, research and technology organisation (RTO), public sector organisation, or academic institution.

If the lead organisation is an Academic institution or RTO it must collaborate with at least one business of any size.

To work alone your organisation must be a UK registered business of any size, or public sector organisation.

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, academic institution, research and technology organisation (RTO), public sector organisation can only lead on one application but can be included as a collaborator in two further applications.

If a business, academic institution, research and technology organisation (RTO), public sector organisation is not leading any application, it can collaborate in any number of applications.

Your project must:

• have a grant funding request between £2 million and £7.5 million
• last between 40 and 43 months
• start by 1 September 2026
• end by 31 March 2030

Any funded organisation needs to carry out their project work in the UK and must intend to exploit the project results from or in the UK.

If applying collaboratively, your consortium must ensure that no one partner accounts for more than 70% of the total eligible costs.

The aim of this competition is to bridge the knowledge gap to impact productivity, safety and growth, and deliver public benefit through accelerating adoption of robotics.

Hubs will be located within a region, may have single or multi end user sector focus and are expected to build on strengths and capabilities within the existing ecosystem.

Hubs will at a minimum:

• advise end users on robotics benefits, costs and integration needs, help identify applications, and connect them with vendors, integrators and finance providers
• showcase robotics at the Hub and in representative environments.
• build in a mechanism to be self sustaining beyond the end of the programme
• work with the central convening body to share lessons learned, develop national adoption resources, and triage enquiries to the most suitable Hub
• share success stories and lessons learned with the central convening body
• focus on adoption led activity rather than low Technology Readiness Level (TRL) or fundamental research
• reuse existing facilities rather than building new or significantly refurbishing physical infrastructure
• purchase a small amount of robotic demonstration equipment for showcasing, while focusing mainly on using existing hardware

Your project must:

• provide impartial advice to end users on what robotics is, identify an application in their organisation, connect them with vendors, integrators and finance providers
• deliver a new or additional capability not just extend existing activities; by guiding and supporting greater adoption of automation by end users
• develop a self sustaining robotics adoption Hub by the end of the project, for example, by building towards developing a revenue generating service for longer term viability
• achieve tangible robotics adoption results including robots operating in an end user organisation with measurable benefits, not just pilots, within the course of the project
• collect and share evaluation data from end users with Innovate UK and the central convening body including but not limited to changes in turnover, headcount and safety
• work collaboratively with the other Robotics Adoption Hubs and central convening body to triage leads to the most suitable organisation to provide support based on expertise, sector and region
• work with the central convening body and the network of Hubs to develop materials and guides to accelerate robotics adoption using standardised branding developed through the programme
• attend regular meetings, quarterly at a minimum, of the Hub project leads to share knowledge and plan coordinated approaches, organised by the central convening body as secretariat

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

• manufacturing
• infrastructure
• construction
• health and care
• energy generation or distribution
• maritime

This is not an exhaustive list.

Innovate UK will hold an online briefing at 10.30am on Monday 2 March: click here to register for a place. This briefing will cover both strands of the competition. A recording and slides will be available afterwards.

If you would like help to find a collaboration partner, contact Innovate UK Business Connect’s Robotics team.