UK-registered SMEs and research organisations are eligible to apply either as sole applicants or as part of a collaborative team comprising up to three organisations, to develop innovative agentic AI solutions. To be eligible to participate, you must

• Be led by a UK-registered business.
• Hold in-house agentic AI capability, with IP control of the core codebase.
• Demonstrate relevant expertise in agentic AI, particularly in its application to design settings.
• Commit to carrying out all participation activities within the UK and intend to exploit the results in or from the UK.

Innovate UK does not take any interest or ownership of any Intellectual property (IP) rights. Where you are collaborating, you are expected to agree background and foreground IP arrangements between yourselves before the solution validation exercise window.

Project leadership
This competition is open to single applicants and collaborations. Consortiums containing more than three organisations are not accepted.

Lead organisation

• To lead a consortium, your organisation must be a UK-registered business of any size.
• The lead will be the contracting party for any subsequent prize award.

More information on the different types of organisations can be found in our funding rules.

Project team

• To collaborate with the lead organisation, you must be a UK-registered organisation.
• Your consortium cannot include more than one large organisation.
• A collaboration can include up to three organisations in total (lead plus up to two partners).

Each partner organisation must be invited into the Innovation Funding Service (IFS) by the lead to collaborate on a project. Once partners have accepted the invitation, they will be asked to login or to create an account in IFS.

Number of applications
An organisation may lead only one application but can be a partner on up to two further applications. If collaborating you can only be part of three applications.

If you wish to withdraw an application before the EOI deadline, please email support@iuk.ukri.org

A minimum of £1 million has been allocated to Pioneers Prize fund competition fund.

This is an Expression of Interest (EoI) competition. You must be successful at EoI to be invited to Phase 2, Development Phase. Full challenge statements will be released at the start of the Phase 2.

The aim of this competition is to accelerate the adoption of agentic AI in design across three key UK growth sectors:

• Advanced manufacturing
• Advanced materials
• Creative industries

We are looking for practical, testable solutions with a clear path to real-world deployment in the UK.

Agentic AI refers to systems that can take initiative, make decisions, and act autonomously toward a goal, often by proposing, evaluating, and refining solutions in context. In a design setting, this could include use cases such as:

• Conceptual ideation and discovery
  Agentic AI can act as a co-designer, helping teams explore ideas faster and more creatively.
• Process automation
  AI agents can streamline repetitive or complex engineering tasks reducing cost and time.
• Human-AI collaboration
  Agentic AI can act as a design partner or reviewer to improve quality.
• Lifecycle and systems engineering
  Agentic AI can coordinate across subsystems to orchestrate simulations and generate digital records.

Your project must address one challenge statement within your chosen sector. The finalised challenge statements will be shared with shortlisted teams.

The examples provided below are illustrative only, they represent the types of problems you may be solving, not the exact statements.

Health and life sciences

• Smarter drug discovery
  AI to suggest promising new compounds with clear reasons and simple steps to make them, speeding up early-stage R&D.
• Next-gen material Recipes
  
  AI to recommend formulations and process settings to hit strength or heat-resistance targets faster.

Advanced manufacturing

• Innovative product definitions
  Agents perform multidisciplinary topological and topographical optimisation driving improvement around performance, sustainability, manufacturability and cost.
• Smarter factory planning
  AI recommends machine selection, location and virtual commissioning to meet deadlines with fewer changeovers and lower energy use.
• Proactive assurance
  AI manages validation and verification activities, managing change, concession and inspection outcomes and impacts – catching issues earlier with less effort.

Creative industries

• Generative storyboarding assistant
  AI interprets scripts or briefs and autonomously generates visual storyboards, suggesting camera angles, scene compositions, and transitions.
• Fashion design co-creator
  AI proposes garment styles, materials, and patterns based on mood boards, trend data, and sustainability goals.
• Architectural space planning
  AI suggests floor plans that meet your brief and improve daylight, flow, and usable space.

Expression of Interest open: 20 October 2025
Online briefing event: 23 October 2025, 10:00 am
Expression of Interest close: 19 November 2025, 11:00 am
Development phase starts: 1 December 2025
Report deadline: 18 February 2026
Solution demonstration and judging week: 16 – 20 March 2026
Final judging: 16 – 20 March 2026

Winners announced at the ceremony

A briefing webinar will be held on 23 October 2025 at 10:00 am. Click here to register for a place.

The briefing recording and slides will be available to download here after the briefing event.

If you want help to find a project partner, contact Innovate UK Business Connect.

Innovate UK Business Growth helps innovation focused businesses make the best strategic choices and access the right resources, in order to grow and ultimately achieve scale.

Our innovation and growth specialists provide our fully funded and bespoke support to clients nationwide. Please visit the Business Growth website to discover whether you could benefit from this advisory support, which is available to Innovate UK funded and non-funded businesses alike.