In Spring 2022, the UK government announced its largest ever investment in R&D for the period 2022-2025 of £39.8bn.
The majority of funding is being delivered through the Department of Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy (BEIS) and its partner organisations. The budget allocations will allow the government to deliver on the ambitions set out in its Innovation Strategy.
This significant Government investment in innovation means there are numerous R&D funding opportunities available for academia, small, medium and large businesses across a wide range of sectors. However, navigating this funding landscape can be time consuming and complex.
As part of our commitment to help support and commercialise innovation, FIS360 is minimising the effort you need to find the funding you require by signposting you to the most up to date information on public sector R&D funding. We are also offering to send funding alerts to those organisations who wish to be kept up to date on new funding opportunities.
The Knowledge Transfer Networks (KTN) Funding Opportunities page covers most UK public sector funding, EU opportunities and also private sector challenges available through their own Innovation Exchange programme.
The UK Research and Innovation (UKRI) Funding Finder covers all of the funding competitions run by UKRI including all of the Research Councils.
The Innovate UK Innovation Funding Service (IFS) covers all funding competitions (grants, loans and R&D contracts) run by Innovate UK both on their own behalf and on behalf of other Government Departments.
For Ministry of Defence (MoD) funded opportunities related to the Defence and Security sectors and technology transfer, the Defence and Security Accelerator (DASA) website provides information of open innovation competitions, innovation focus areas and themed competitions.
Game Changers is managed by FIS360. in partnership with NNL and funds feasibility and proof of concept projects that address challenges set by the nuclear sector. It also provides invaluable access to the end users
The Net Zero Technology Centre, is a public/private partnership based in Aberdeen. It funds R&D challenges to drive investment in net zero-related technologies. Its funding opportunities can be found here.
NB. Whilst the above sites capture the significant majority of the Governments announced.
R&D. funding, we recognise that other funding opportunities may exist.
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Please see below for some of the most recent public sector R&D funding opportunities:
Key features:
Loans of up to £1.6m with a below market interest rate of 7.4% per annum to help convert mature defence innovation into a strong business proposition for defence procurement.
Open Indefinitely
Key features:
Innovate UK: UK registered organisations can apply for a share of up to £25 million for game-changing and commercially viable R&D innovation that can significantly impact the UK economy. This funding is from Innovate UK, part of UK Research and Innovation.
This competition is open to single applicants and collaborations. To lead a project your organisation must:
Opening date: 27/10/2022
Closing date: 18/01/2023
Key features:
Innovate UK: This funding route is to deliver the UK Government’s Horizon Europe guarantee. Specifically, it covers funding for UK partners involved in EIT-KIC activities in the 2022 calendar year.
UK-based organisations involved in EIT-KIC activities in 2022 who would have received EIT grant funding had the UK been associated to Horizon Europe.
Open Indefinitely
Key features:
Applications for NZTC 2023 Open Innovation Programme are now open.
NZTC are seeking data and digital technology-based solutions that will reduce offshore emissions, accelerate clean energy production, and enable delivery of the UK’s net zero ambitions.
Key Features
The projects must support the transition towards net zero with an obligation of trialling and deploying technology on the UK continental shelf. As well as funding, the projects will also gain access to data facilities and technical expertise from industry.
We are seeking digitally based solutions tied to a key use case that have the potential to make a material contribution towards the energy transition.
Open January 2023:
Closing date: 17 February 2023
Closing date: 17/02/2023
Key features:
Key Features
Innovate UK: UK registered organisations can apply for a share of up to £16 million to deliver, resource efficient, low-emission food production systems. Including alternative proteins and Total Controlled Environment Agriculture (TCEA).
This competition is open to collaborations only.
To lead an industrial research project your organisation must be a UK registered business of any size.
Opens:18 January 2023
Closes:19 April 2023
Opening date: 18/01/2023
Closing date: 19/04/2023
Key features:
Key Features
Innovate UK: UK registered organisations can apply for a share of up to £16 million to deliver resource efficient, low-emission food production systems. Including alternative proteins and Total Controlled Environment Agriculture (TCEA).
This competition is open to collaborations only.
To lead a feasibility studies project your organisation must be a UK registered:
Opens:18 January 2023
Closes:19 April 2023
Opening date: 18/01/2023
Closing date: 19/04/2023
Key features:
Key Features
Innovate UK: Local authorities can apply for a share of up to £6 million to build skills and capabilities to accelerate local progress towards net zero.
This competition is open to single applicants or collaborations.
To lead a project your organisation must be a UK registered local authority.
Opens:18 January 2023
Closes:1 March 2023
Opening date: 18/01/2023
Closing date: 01/03/2023
Key features:
Key Features
Innovate UK: UK registered businesses can apply for loans for innovative projects with strong commercial potential to significantly improve the UK economy.
This competition is open to single small and medium sized enterprise (SME) applicants registered in the UK.
Opens:13 January 2023
Closes:8 March 2023
Closing date: 08/03/2023
Key features:
Key Features
Innovate UK: UK registered organisations can apply for a share of up to £20 million over the three strands of the competition. Projects will support the development of innovative solutions to address significant nutrition challenges. This funding is from Innovate UK.
This competition is open to collaborations only.
To lead a mid-stage industrial research project your organisation must be a UK registered business of any size.
Opened:11 January 2023
Closes: 29 March 2023
Closing date: 29/03/2023
Key features:
Key Features
Innovate UK: UK registered organisations can apply for a share of up to £20 million over the three strands of the competition. Projects will support the development of innovative solutions to address significant nutrition challenges. This funding is from Innovate UK.
This competition is open to collaborations only. To lead an early-stage feasibility project your organisation must be a UK registered:
Opened:11 January 2023
Closes:29 March 2023
Closing date: 29/03/2023
Key features:
Key Features
Innovate UK: UK registered organisations can apply for a share of up to £5 million. This is to support innovation in intracellular drug delivery formulations. This funding is from Innovate UK.
This competition is open to collaborations only.
To lead a project your organisation must be a UK registered:
You must involve at least one grant claiming micro, small or medium-sized enterprise (SME).
Opened:9 January 2023
Closes:22 February 2023
Closing date: 22/02/2023
Key features:
Key Features
Innovate UK: UK registered businesses can apply for a share of up to £12.5 million across the two strands of this competition, to develop innovative solutions for automation and robotics. This funding is from the Farming Futures R&D Fund.
This competition is open to collaborations only. To lead a project your organisation must be a UK registered business of any size.
Opened:9 January 2023
Closes:15 March 2023
Closing date: 15/03/2023
Key features:
Key Features
Innovate UK: UK registered businesses can apply for a share of up to £1 billion for capital centric investment projects that help industrialise the electrified automotive supply chain at scale in the UK.
This competition is open to single applicants and collaborations.
To lead a project your organisation must be a UK registered:
Opened:9 January 2023
Closes:1 February 2023
Closing date: 01/02/2023
Key features:
Key Features
Innovate UK: UK registered SMEs can apply for a share of up to £25 million to develop innovative solutions to health and healthcare challenges. This funding is from Innovate UK.
This competition is open to single applicants and collaborations.
To lead a project your organisation must be a UK registered micro, small or medium-sized enterprise (SME).
Opened:4 January 2023
Closes:1 March 2023
Closing date: 01/03/2023
Key features:
Key Features
Innovate UK: UK registered businesses can apply for a share of up to £2 million in grant funding to form consortia to deliver feasibility studies.
This competition is open to single applicants.
To lead a project your organisation must be a UK registered:
Opened:12 December 2022
Closes:25 January 2023
Closing date: 25/01/2023
Key features:
Key Features
Innovate UK: UK registered organisations can apply for a share of up to £2 million for feasibility studies to develop and improve sustainable biomanufacturing in the UK.
This competition is only open to collaborative applications.
To lead a project your organisation must be a UK registered:
Opened:7 December 2022
Closes:1 February 2023
Closing date: 01/02/2023
Key features:
Key Features
Innovate UK: UK registered micro and small businesses in the creative industries sector, can apply for funding up to £50,000 with a package of support to grow their business.
This competition is open to single applicants only.
To lead a project your organisation must:
Opened:5 December 2022
Closes:15 February 2023
Closing date: 15/02/2023
Key features:
Key Features
Innovate UK: UK registered micro, small and medium enterprises in the creative sector can apply for funding of between £10,000 and £30,000 for innovation projects to grow their business. This funding is from Innovate UK and includes support from Innovate UK KTN.
This competition is open to single applicants only.
To lead a project your organisation must be:
Opened:28 November 2022
Closes:8 February 2023
Closing date: 08/02/2023
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