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.

Smart is Innovate UK’s responsive grant funding programme. It has focused eligibility criteria and scope to support SMEs and their partners to develop disruptive innovations with significant potential for rapid economic return to the UK.

Innovate UK, part of UK Research and Innovation, is investing up to £25 million in the best game-changing and world-leading ideas, designed for swift, successful commercialisation. Ideas need to be genuinely new and novel, not just disruptive within their sector.

Your proposal must be business focused, with deliverable, realistic, adequately resourced plans to achieve return on investment, growth and market share following project completion.

Questions for this round of Smart reflect the importance of obtaining economic benefits from public funding, and the potential for successful commercialisation, growth and exports.

Applications can come from any area of technology and be applied to any part of the economy, such as, but not exclusively, net zero, the arts, design and media.

Projects of 6 to 18 months must have total project costs of between £100,000 and £500,000 and can be single or collaborative. Projects of 19 to 36 months must have total project costs of between £100,000 and £2 million and must be collaborative.

Your project must:

• start by 1 July 2023
• end by 30 June 2026
• include at least one micro, small or medium-sized enterprise (SME) as the lead or a collaborative grant claiming partner
• carry out all of its project work in the UK
• intend to exploit the results from or in the UK

Eligibility

To lead a project your organisation must:

• be an SME if you want to work alone
• be a UK registered business of any size or a research and technology organisation (RTO) if collaborative

If your organisation is not an SME, it must collaborate with one. If the lead organisation is an RTO it must collaborate with 2 businesses (one SME and one business of any size).

Businesses or RTOs can only lead on one application. All partners can collaborate on any number of applications.

For more information please click here.