Innovate UK

The Smart Grants scheme is Innovate UK’s core funding model for business-led collaborative R&D. With regular deadlines roughly every two months, this scheme is not limited to a particular industry or technology area, so competition can be high.

There are three types of project a Smart Grant can support:

• early feasibility studies to analyse and evaluate the potential of an idea, including market research
• industrial research, with the intention that the skills and knowledge acquired will lead to an improvement in existing products, processes or services
• experimental development, actually developing these new products, processes or services through activities including prototype testing, piloting and demonstration.

In all cases, projects must be business-led; applicants must include SMEs; and research organisations partnering in an application cannot incur more than 30% of total project costs.

The businesses partnering in an application can receive different funding rates depending on their size and the type of project (feasibility, industrial research or experimental development). Universities are reimbursed at the flat rate of 80% FEC.

Minimum project duration is 6 months and minimum project costs are £25k. For projects up to 18 months in duration the maximum project cost is £500k, and for projects from 19 to 36 months in duration the maximum project cost is £2m.

How to make an application

For academics partnering on an Innovate UK grant, the process includes both contributing to the main application on the Innovation Funding Service (IFS) and making a cut-down Je-S application:

• All partner applicants should have access to the main grant on IFS – the lead partner will invite you via the system. On this you will be able to see and edit the entire application with your partners, and you will be asked to complete specific sections that focus solely on the University’s role in the application.
• Your Faculty Research and Innovation Office will help you cost your project contribution via a Je-S application. In addition to the costing, you will be required to complete a Pathway to Impact and Justification of Resources. You may also need to add a summary of the expertise and facilities provided by the University to the project in the section entitled “University of Leeds track record”.
• Once the Je-S is complete, it must be submitted ahead of the IFS deadline, and you must upload the PDF of the Je-S to your section in the IFS. You also take the costings from Je-S and enter them separately into the finances section for the University on IFS, where they are added to the total project costs automatically.
• Each partner must mark every section of the IFS form “Complete” on their version before the application can be submitted by the lead.

It is recommended that you organise time ahead of the deadline to sit with a member of staff from your FRIO and work through the application submission together. It is also recommended that you keep a PDF of the full application for reference.

Features of a successful Smart Grants application

For most Innovate UK applications, the business case is key. A good application includes a robust description of the market being targeted, the competitive advantage gained, and a realistic yet attractive return on investment for the company partners.

Selecting the right partners is important; those with strong routes to market and dominant positions lend credibility to claims that products will be acceptable to users and scaleable, and those with a strong R&D track record in the relevant sector will reassure assessors that technology will be innovative and product development will be robust. If you are seeking partners you can contact the Knowledge Transfer Network (KTN) to help.

Some of the rules for completing applications are complex, especially in relation to funding. Please contact us for assistance on any aspect of your application.

New Innovation Missions will be announced in due course.

Please see the UK Innovation Strategy page for background information and current priority areas.

In some cases Innovate UK has partnered with other funding bodies to make a specific stream of funding available to focus innovation funding in a particular nascent industry or priority area. Four Catalyst Programmes are currently running, in Industrial Biotechnology, Energy, Agri-Tech and Digital Health Technology. Funding partners include Research Councils and government departments, and competitions can be run by those partner funders or Innovate UK.

Innovate UK-run Catalyst competitions tend to replicate the Smart Grant model, although sometimes with adjustments on, for example, the allowable total project costs or the cap on research organisations’ involvement.

Innovate UK also runs the Knowledge Transfer Partnership (KTP) scheme, which is an excellent model for working with companies – especially SMEs – with less R&D experience. For more information, visit the dedicated KTP page.

The Small Business Research Initiative (SBRI) is an innovation procurement programme, rather than a grant funding scheme. It is designed to give innovators in micros and start-ups an opportunity to show how the products and services they are developing can help solve specific challenges in the public sector. This also gives small companies a commercial contract (sometimes their first) so they can start to build a track record and move from pre-revenue status into profit-making.

However, academic-led teams are not excluded from applying to SBRI competitions, as the challenges sometimes require very novel solutions. The key differentiator for an academic to be aware of when considering whether to apply for an SBRI rather than a research grant is that as a procurement competition there will be a focus on delivery of a product or service (possibly in prototype or demonstrator form) for the public sector commissioning body. It can be helpful to partner with a commercial company with a strong delivery track record to both craft an attractive tender and ensure the work is delivered in practice.

SBRI had a new lease of life in recent years with the advent of the Industrial Strategy, under which the GovTech Catalyst was introduced. This supplies a flow of challenges from government departments into the SBRI model. Applications to SBRI competitions are made via the Innovation Funding Service.

Innovate UK has developed an International Innovation Competitions with funding linked to bilateral agreements, e.g. Canada, Singapore and South Korea covering sectors and challenge areas of mutual interest.

Funding opportunities for these schemes are published on the Innovation Funding Service.

As with other schemes, the UK portion of these projects tend to be structured in the standard Innovate UK style, where academic institutions cannot lead an application, but can join as collaborators, as seen in Smart Grants, with some variations to the model.

Innovate UK frequently works in partnership with other innovation funders and sometimes helps to run competitions for those partners, which include government departments and charitable funders. For example, competitions for the Strength in Places fund are run in partnership with Research England.

In addition to grant funding, Innovate UK runs an Innovation Loans scheme for SMEs, and partners with angel investors on a series of Investment Accelerator schemes – often around ISCF challenge areas. It also funds the ICURe commercialisation programme for researchers.