Innovate UK has opened Round 3 of Engineering Biology Collaborative R&D, with £8.5 million on the table for UK businesses turning engineering biology into products, processes and services people will actually buy.
The competition is run by Innovate UK with BBSRC, and it funds industrial research led by a UK business. It is aimed squarely at the scale-up problem rather than the science question, so you need a route to producing at volume in the UK and at least one named end user in your consortium who wants what you are making.
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 a project, you must be a UK registered business of any size. Academic institutions can lead work packages but cannot lead an application.
Your consortium must include at least one UK registered micro, small or medium-sized enterprise. SMEs can lead a collaborative project, involving multiple organisations.
You must work with at least one collaborator. The following can join you as collaborators:
- Academic institutions
- Charities
- Not-for-profits
- Public sector organisations
- Research and technology organisations (RTOs)
- UK registered businesses
You can only lead one application, though you can join up to two more as a collaborator. No single organisation can claim more than 70% of the total eligible costs, and subcontracting is capped at the same 70%.
Your Project
Your project must:
- Have total eligible costs of between £750,000 and £2.5 million
- Last between 12 and 36 months
- Start no earlier than 1 April 2027, on the first of a month, and end by 31 March 2030
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 one or more of the competition themes: agriculture and food, chemicals and materials, cross cutting technology and service development, health, low carbon fuels, and waste and environment
- Be industrial research, and not fundamental research, a feasibility study or discovery work
- Draw its primary innovation and competitive advantage from engineering biology
- Include a life cycle assessment (LCA) and a techno-economic assessment (TEA)
- Involve at least one named end user from further down your supply chain
- Show a clear route to scaling up in the UK
Innovate UK won't fund projects that:
- Are focused only on regulations and standards, educational resources, behavioural science, policy, or skills and relationships
- Cover the clinical development of a biologic, vaccine or engineering biology derived small molecule
- Involve clinical trials or the preclinical evaluation of therapeutics
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 £375,000 to £1.75 million.
Applying as a Company
| Project Type | Micro and Small | Medium | Large |
|---|---|---|---|
| Percentage of Costs Covered* | 70% | 60% | 50% |
*Industrial research refers to planned research aimed at acquiring new knowledge for developing new products, processes, or services.
Funding Example
If your project has total eligible costs of £1.5 million and you are a small company claiming all of them, you can apply for a grant of £1,050,000. You will need to fund the remaining £450,000 from other sources, like R&D Tax Relief, investment or loans.
Applying as a Non-Commercial Organisation
Research organisations carrying out non-economic work can share up to 30% 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 3 November 2026.
Applications are submitted via Innovate UK's Innovation Funding Service (IFS) portal.
The application is split into four sections:
Project Details
This section is not scored. You will cover:
- Application details, including the title, start date and duration
- Application team
- Project summary
- Public description
- Research category
- Scope description
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, international collaboration and trusted research
- Ten scored questions covering your need, approach, team, market awareness, route to market, wider impacts, project management, risks, added value and value for money
You can include appendices (PDFs of up to two A4 pages) for the approach, team, project management and risk questions.
Finances
Every organisation in your consortium submits its own costs, and academic institutions use the TRAC method.
Project Impact
This section is not scored, but you have to complete it before you can 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 4 February 2027. Applications that pass the initial assessment may be invited to an interview between 18 and 29 January 2027.
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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