A warm welcome to the November 2024 issue of Grants Watch, GrantTree’s monthly summary of the grant competitions open to innovative UK organisations.
If you want a free, expert assessment of whether you’re eligible for any of the competitions below, just get in touch!
My colleagues and I in GrantTree’s grants team would be happy to:
- Tell you what grants you’re eligible for
- Tell you how strong your project is
- Suggest alternative sources of funding if you’re not suitable for the grants below
What's in this edition?
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Canada-UK Collaborative R&D
Funding available: Up to £300,000
Deadline: 16 April 2025, 11 am
This competition offers grants of up to £300,000 to UK SMEs looking to develop innovative technologies with a partner in Canada.
Delivered by Innovate UK and the National Research Council of Canada’s Industrial Research Assistance Program (NRC IRAP), this scheme will support innovative projects from a wide range of sectors and technology areas.
To qualify, your project must:
- Last between 12-24 months
- Start by 1 September 2025
- End by 31 August 2027
Your consortium must:
- Include at least one UK-registered SME
- Include at least one Canadian-registered SMEs
Find out if you’re eligible. Request a call from a grants expert.
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Design Foundations Round 6
Funding available: Up to £80,000
Deadline: 15 January 2025, 11 am
This Innovate UK competition will fund innovative projects that “use people-centred and systemic design methods”.
The agency aims for this work to lay the foundations for “innovative ideas that can deliver significant benefits to people, the planet and society as a whole.”
Aligning to these goals, your proposal must achieve one or more of the following:
- identify new opportunities to innovate, and plan how to respond to them
- generate new ideas in response to a known need or opportunity
- improve existing innovative ideas
To qualify, your project must:
- Last between three and six months
- Start by 1 June 2025
- End by 30 November 2025
This competition is open to UK businesses of any size. However, you must collaborate with at least one other UK-registered organisation.
Find out if you’re eligible. Request an eligibility assessment.
EIC Accelerator
Funding available: Up to €2.5 million
Deadline: None for Stage 1 applications; 12th March or 1st October 2025 for Stage 2
The EIC Accelerator offers generous grants to European SMEs (under 500 employees) developing innovative, late-stage (TRL 5-8) technologies with the potential to create or disrupt markets.
EIC Accelerator has two ‘strands’:
- Open – More competitive. Accepts applications from any field of technology.
- Challenges – Less competitive. Funds projects that address pre-defined areas of innovation, such as generative AI and space infrastructure.
You can apply to either strand at any time. If you make it past Stage 1 (a short proposal, pitch deck and 3-minute video), you’ll be invited to submit a full application at Stage 2, which has two deadlines each year.
You don’t need to be working with a company from another European country to apply for EIC.
As the name suggests, this call is funded and run by the European Innovation Council, Europe’s flagship innovation programme supporting high-potential technologies. The EIC was established under Horizon Europe, the EU’s primary innovation funding agency.
Find out if you’re eligible for the EIC Accelerator. Request an eligibility assessment.
EIC Pathfinder
Funding available: Up to €4 million
Deadline: 21 May 2025 / 29 October 2025
The EIC Pathfinder offers grants to accelerate ambitious, early-stage (TRL 1-4) projects that:
- Hinge on high-risk/high-reward research
- Could unleash a radical new technology with the potential to create new markets and solve global challenges
Like Accelerator, EIC Pathfinder has both an Open and a Challenge strand.
EIC Pathfinder Open offers grants of up to €3 million and supports groups featuring at least three organisations from different countries. It’s open until 21 May 2025.
EIC Pathfinder Challenges offers grants of up to €4 million open to single applicants whose innovation aligns with specific themes. Applications for the Challenges strand close on 29 October 2025.
Find out if you’re eligible for the EIC Pathfinder. Request an eligibility assessment.
EIC Transition
Funding available: Up to €2.5 million
Deadline: 17 September 2025
EIC Transition supports the evolution of technologies “from lab to market”, offering sizable grants to both single applicants and consortia that are looking to validate and develop business plans for emerging innovations (TRL 3-6).
The ‘Transition’ refers to this call’s role in maturing projects that have received funding from the EIC Pathfinder or similar early-stage schemes to the point where they’re ready for the EIC Accelerator and other late-stage funding.
This €98 million call is open to innovations from all fields of science and technology. However, to apply for EIC Transition, you need to have already won funding for your project from one of the following schemes:
- EIC Pathfinder
- European Research Council Proof of Concept
- Research and Innovation Actions
- European Defence Fund (EDF)
Large companies with 500 or more employees cannot apply for EIC Transition.
Find out if you’re eligible for the EIC Transition. Request an eligibility assessment.
India-UK Collaborative R&D for industrial sustainability
Funding available: Up to £300,000
Deadline: 12 February 2025, 11 am
This scheme offers grants of £100,000-£300,000 for UK companies looking to develop net zero technologies with an Indian partner.
It is delivered by Innovate UK and the Indian government’s Department of Science and Technology (DST).
To qualify, your project must:
- Accelerate the development towards achieving net zero
- Demonstrate a game-changing idea with a clear route to commercialisation that can deliver a significant economic impact
- Start by 1 September 2025
- End by 31 March 2027
- Last 6-18 months
Your consortium must:
- Include at least one UK-based SME
- Include at least one Indian-registered business that isn’t linked to the UK businesses that are applying
Find out if you’re eligible. Request an eligibility assessment.
Innovation Loans
Funding available: Up to £2 million
Deadline: 8 January 2025, 11 am
Innovate UK’s Innovation Loans scheme isn’t a grant competition. However, it can be an excellent source of non-equity funding for late-stage R&D projects.
The competition offers loans of between £100,000 and £2 million with attractive terms such as a deferred, below-market interest rate of 3.7% during project execution.
Unlike most Innovate UK schemes, Innovation Loans will cover up to 100% of your project costs.
To apply, you must be a UK-registered SME and in a position to take out a loan.
Find out if you’re eligible. Request an eligibility assessment.
Smart grants
Funding available: Up to £700,000
Deadline: 22 January 2025, 11 am
The November 2024 round of Innovate UK’s Smart grant is now open.
This Innovate UK competition helps UK SMEs develop “world-leading ideas designed for swift, successful commercialisation.”
To qualify for Smart, your project must:
- Have between £100,000 and £1 million in qualifying costs
- Start by 1 April 2025
- End by 31 March 2027
Smart is open to projects from any sector. This makes it both widely accessible and highly competitive; on average, around 3% to 7% percent of companies receive funding.
This round is likely to be especially hard to win. It has a funding pool of just £15 million, £10 million less than previous rounds. More projects tussling for less funding will likely mean a higher bar for qualifying projects.
Find out if you’re eligible. Request an eligibility assessment.
Let GrantTree find you funding
Looking for grant funding? GrantTree can help.
Our experts can tell you exactly what competitions you’re eligible for.
We’ll also explain what other types of non-equity funding you’re eligible for – such as R&D Tax Credits and loans – so you can secure the capital you need to grow.
To book your funding assessment, just get in touch.
