Innovate UK has opened a £5 million competition to help UK SMEs move lab-proven engineering biology out of the lab and onto pilot and demonstration scale equipment.
The point of this one is access. Plenty of small engineering biology companies stall in the same place. The science works at bench scale, but the fermenters, biofoundries and downstream processing kit needed to prove it at pilot scale sit inside catapults, CMOs and other facilities that are expensive to book. This competition pays for that access, and for the work that shows the innovation holds up technically and commercially.
Below, I have explained the key things you need to know about this competition before you apply: who is eligible, how much funding is on the table, and what the application process looks like.
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Who is Eligible?
Your Organisation
To lead this competition, you must be a UK-registered micro, small or medium-sized enterprise (SME). SMEs can apply as a sole applicant or lead a collaborative project, involving multiple organisations. Academic institutions can't lead.
You can bring in the following as collaborators:
- Academic institutions
- Charities
- Not-for-profit organisations
- Public sector organisations
- Research and technology organisations (RTOs)
- UK-registered businesses of any size
In a collaborative project, you and at least one other organisation must claim grant funding. You can only lead one application, but you can join up to two more as a collaborator.
Your Project
Your project must:
- Have total eligible costs of between £200,000 and £750,000
- Last no longer than 24 months
- Start by 1 February 2027 and end by 31 January 2029
All funded work must be carried out in the UK, and you must intend to exploit the project results from or within the UK.
Your project must also:
- Address at least one competition theme: health, agriculture and food, chemicals and materials, low carbon fuels, waste and environment, or cross cutting technology and service development
- Build on an innovation you have already proven at lab scale
- Draw its primary innovation and competitive advantage from engineering biology, or clearly enable engineering biology
- Include pilot or demonstration scale work in a commercially relevant setting
- Include validation work, which can cover a techno-economic assessment and impact validation
- Partner with, or subcontract to, a UK-registered organisation that has the scale-up infrastructure you need
Innovate UK won't fund projects that:
- Are about infrastructure expansion or capital purchases
- Are focused on fundamental research, feasibility studies or discovery work
- Cover clinical trials or the preclinical evaluation of therapeutics
- Include the clinical development of biologics, vaccines or small molecules derived from them
How Much Funding Can I Apply For?
The amount you can claim depends on your organisation's type and size and the sort of research your project involves.
Individual grants range from £100,000 to £525,000.
Applying as a Company
This competition funds industrial research only.
| Project Type | Micro and Small | Medium | Large |
|---|---|---|---|
| Industrial Research* | 70% | 60% | 50% |
*Industrial research refers to planned research aimed at acquiring new knowledge for developing new products, processes, or services.
Funding Example
If you're a small company and your total eligible project costs are £600,000, you can claim up to 70%, which is a grant of £420,000. You will need to fund the remaining £180,000 from other sources, like R&D Tax Relief, investment or loans.
Applying as a Non-Commercial Organisation
Non-economic organisations can share up to 50% of the total eligible project costs and are funded at higher rates:
- Up to 100% of eligible costs if you are a charity, not-for-profit, public sector organisation, research organisation, or RTO
- Up to 80% of full economic costs (FEC) if you're a Je-S-registered institution, like a university
How Do I Apply?
The deadline for applications is 21 October 2026.
Applications are submitted via Innovate UK's Innovation Funding Service (IFS) portal.
The application is split into four sections:
Project Details
This section isn't scored. You'll need to cover:
- Application details, including your project title, start date and duration
- Application team, including the organisations you are working with
- Project summary
- Public description
- Research category
- Scope, explaining how your project fits the competition and qualifies as engineering biology
Most answers in this section are limited to 400 words.
Application Questions
There are 17 questions in total:
- Seven unscored administrative questions covering topics like animal testing, export licences, international collaboration and trusted research
- Ten scored questions covering your need or challenge, approach and innovation, team and resources, market awareness, route to market, business growth impacts, project management, risks, added value, and costs and value for money
You can include appendices (PDFs of up to two A4 pages) for the approach, team, project management, and risk questions. The project management and risk appendices are required, and the other two are optional.
Finances
Each organisation completes its own project costs, organisation details and funding details.
Project Impact
This section isn't scored, and every partner has to complete it before you submit.
Your application will be reviewed by three independent assessors. Their individual scores will be combined to determine your final result.
If you're successful, you'll be notified by 27 November 2026.
Like with most competitions, Innovate UK takes a 'portfolio approach' by funding projects across different technologies, markets and technological maturities. This means that a strong score won't necessarily guarantee that your application will be successful.
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