Innovate UK Smart Grants
Innovate UK
Game-changing and commercially viable R&D innovation that can significantly impact the UK economy
- Use: R&D;
- Date closing: -
- Amount: 100,000 £ - 500,000 £
- Industry focus: Agriculture, Forestry, Fishery; Arts; Tourism; Health; ICT; Food; Manufacturing; Chemical industry; Construction; Education; Energy and water supply; Transportation; Media; Others;
- Yearly operations: 100
- Total budget: 30M £
- Entity type: Public Agency
- Vertical focus: All
- Website: https://www.gov.uk/
- Status: Open
- Funding type: Grant;
- Funding rate: 70%
- Geographic focus: United Kingdom;
- Public/Private: Public
- Stage focus: pre-seed;
- Applicant target: SME; Startup; LE; RTO; University; Non-for-profit organisation; Mid-cap; Other; Individuals and teams;
Overview
Smart is Innovate UK’s ‘open grant funding’ programme. Innovate UK, part of UK Research and Innovation, is investing up to £25 million in the best game-changing and commercially viable innovative or disruptive ideas. All proposals must be business focused. Applications can come from any area of technology and be applied to any part of the economy, such as, but not exclusively: the arts, design and media creative industries science or engineering Whilst we welcome projects that overlap with the grand challenge areas this is not a requirement, as we are also keen to support projects in other areas. Equality, diversity and inclusion (EDI) considerations are highly encouraged where appropriate in your proposal. You are prompted to consider EDI as part of the application process. Applications will continue to be assessed on their innovation merit, where innovation is defined as the potential for commercially successful exploitation of ideas. In applying to this competition, you are entering into a highly competitive process where your chance of success in securing funding will depend on the number and quality of applications submitted. The eligibility criteria for this competition are different from previous rounds of the Innovate UK Smart grant. This competition closes at 11am UK time on the deadline stated.
Innovate UK Smart Grants FAQ
For example, in question 4, “the potential market”, it is essential that you size the market accurately and include your bottom-up calculations. In question 5, “impact and benefits”, it is advantageous to mention how your solution can impact users from a variety of demographics and socioeconomic backgrounds and mention how the impact will be measured and quantified.
You must also submit a two-page work packages appendix and a two-page risk register appendix with your application and complete the online budgeting form on the Innovate UK portal.
The plain text questions are:
- Scope and project summary (400 words)
How does your project align with the scope of this competition?
- Your idea and innovation (600 words)
What is your idea and innovation, and why is it game-changing?
- Justification for funding (400 words)
Why is your innovation and proposal suitable for Smart funding, and why do you need public funding to help you succeed?
- The potential market (400 words)
What is your target market, and what is your strategy for securing the market opportunity you have identified, including your route to market and commercialisation of project outputs?
- Impact and benefits (600 words)
What will be the impact of receiving the grant, both for your business and outside your organisation?
- Delivering your project (400 words)
Who is in the project team, why do you have the right skills and experience to succeed, and how will you successfully deliver your project?
- Value for money (400 words)
How will you spend your grant funding, and how does this represent good value for money for the taxpayer?
- Approach and innovation
Innovation should be at the heart of your proposal. You should be delivering step changes to multiple sectors by developing something completely novel.
- Value proposition
Make sure it is clear to your assessors how your technology is improving on the existing state-of-the-art with evidence-backed arguments written in understandable language.
- Business case
The assessor is looking to understand the need for your innovation, the customer demand, and the potential business opportunity. It is essential you demonstrate both market awareness and some level of customer engagement.
- Project management
The assessor will be looking to understand the technical and business approaches you are using to commercialise the innovation. In particular, they want to ensure you can guarantee the project will run smoothly with the highest chance of success.
- Risks
Risk is not a bad thing for Smart, but the risks need to be well described and mitigated. These are covered in a maximum two-page appendix attached to your application.
- Added value and clear need for support
Here you must demonstrate why public money should be used for your project. Why can you not finance it with your current funds or through commercial investment?
Assessors will score each section of your proposal according to their individual interpretation of the project and its relation to the above criteria.
Once all the applications are scored, the highest ranking applications are selected for funding, subject to a minimum quality threshold.
Smart Grants are paid on a reimbursement basis and can be claimed quarterly in arrears. You will work with a monitoring officer who will ensure you remain compliant with the terms and conditions of the award and who will arrange audits of your claims. Strata can also assist you throughout the process to ensure everything runs smoothly.
Since payments are made in arrears, successful applicants are expected to demonstrate around a fifth of the total amount applied for in an account or over several accounts before starting (e.g. bank balances of personal/business accounts - this can include a loan you immediately pay back).
If you have any questions about applying with Strata, please contact us for a free consultation.
Innovate UK accepts applications from very young businesses at BRL 1. However, it is considered a strength to demonstrate some market traction. Strata recommends applicants achieve a BRL between 2 and 4 before applying. You can read more about BRL here.
Innovate UK is primarily focused on supporting innovations that are between TRL 3 and TRL 6. It funds feasibility studies, industrial research, and experimental development.
- An annual turnover of less than £36 million
- A balance sheet total less than £18 million
- The average number of employees must be less than 250
The proposed project must be carried out entirely in the UK, and the project results should primarily be exploited from or in the UK. Companies must demonstrate that they are contributing to UK priorities and that they represent good value for money to the UK taxpayer.
Please contact us if you are not sure or want to ask more about the eligibility criteria.
For collaborative projects, the total project cost can extend to £2M and last up to 36 months. Innovate UK will allocate grant funding to each project partner to a total of up to 70% of the project costs.
Smart Grants are an “open grant funding” programme, meaning they have a broader scope than competition funding.
Smart Grant is one of the flagship programmes run by IUK and distributes £25M of funding four times per year for commercially-focussed R&D innovations in the UK:
- It supports world-leading ideas and game-changing innovations
- It favours larger disruptions that are not isolated to a specific sector
- The project must be business-focussed with a realistic strategy to achieve return on investment and growth in the market.
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