Innovate UK has announced the latest round of the Biomedical Catalyst, Britain’s biggest competition for healthcare companies, offering up to £2 million in grants.
Biomedical Catalyst 2025: Industry-Led R&D, to use its full name, will help micro, small and medium-sized companies (SMEs) develop cutting-edge solutions to health and healthcare challenges.
This competition is split into two strands:
- Small R&D projects, offering grants of up to £500,000
- Large R&D projects, offering grants of up to £2 million
Below are the key things you need to know about the Biomedical Catalyst, including who is eligible and how much you can apply for.
Find out if you’re eligible for the Biomedical Catalyst
This call closes on 10 December, giving companies little time to prepare a persuasive application.
If you want to know whether you should apply for the Biomedical Catalyst (and avoid spending many hours on a doomed application if not), my colleagues and I can perform a free Competitiveness and Eligibility Assessment.
In just 30 minutes, we can tell you:
- Whether you’re eligible for the Biomedical Catalyst
- How good are your chances of winning funding
- What other grants and funding schemes you could be eligible for
Who is Eligible for the Biomedical Catalyst 2025: Industry-Led R&D
The Biomedical Catalyst 2025: Industry-Led R&D is open to SMEs working on cutting-edge solutions to health and healthcare challenges.
Cutting-edge means capable of delivering a step change in what is technologically possible, not merely an incremental improvement on existing technology.
Your innovation must have the promise of creating a brand new market or disrupting an existing one, reshaping your field.
An SME is a company that meets two of these three criteria:
- Your annual turnover is no more than £36 million
- The value of your balance sheet is not more than £18 million
- Your average employee headcount is not more than 250
Projects must be led by an SME, but can involve:
- Academic institutions, such as universities
- Charities
- Not for profits
- Other businesses of any size
- Public sector organisations
- Research and technology organisations (RTOs)
For collaborative projects (involving more than one organisation), SMEs must bear at least 50% of the total project costs.
How Much Funding Can I Apply for Through the Biomedical Catalyst 2025?
As mentioned, this competition is split into two strands:
- Small R&D projects, supporting projects with up to £1 million in eligible costs, and offering grants of up to £500,000
- Large R&D projects, supporting projects of up to £4 million in eligible costs, and offering grants of up to £2 million
So, the maximum grant you can apply for through the Biomedical Catalyst 2025 is £2 million, the same as in 2024.
Funding amounts for businesses
However, as a business, the share of eligible project costs your grant will cover depends on:
- The size of your company
- The type of project you are looking to undertake
This is regardless of which of the two strands you are applying to.
| Project Type | Micro and Small | Medium | Large |
|---|---|---|---|
| Industrial research | 70% | 60% | 50% |
| Experimental development | 45% | 35% | 25% |
More on Innovate UK’s definition of micro, small, medium, and large companies.
Project types explained
- Feasibility studies: Evaluating a project’s potential to determine whether it deserves additional resources.
- Industrial research projects: Testing how a product, system or component operates in the laboratory or a simulated environment.
So, if you are a medium-sized company, looking to undertake an industrial research project, you can apply for a grant covering up to 60% of your qualifying costs.
The remainder of your costs must be match-funded, i.e. covered by another source of funding, such as revenues, investor capital, or another type of grant.
Funding amounts for non-commercial organisations
If you are not a business and are applying as part of a consortium, you can apply for up to:
- 100% of your costs, if you are an RTO, charity, not-for-profit, public sector organisation, or research organisation
- 80% of your full economic costs (FEC) as a Je-S registered institution, such as a university
How Do I Apply For A Biomedical Catalyst 2025: Industry-Led R&D Grant?
The application for a Biomedical Catalyst grant has four sections:
- Project details – this is unscored, but provides the assessors with important background about your company and planned project.
- Application questions – Comprises 18 questions, the last 10 of which are scored. This is where you will need to spend most of your time.
- Finances – This is where you break down your planned expenditure for the project. Each organisation delivering your project must complete this section.
- Project impact – This section is also not scored, but explains to your assessors how your project will affect your business and contribute to the UK economy, society, and environment.
Your application will be reviewed by up to five independent assessors. Their scores will be combined to determine whether you receive funding.
Some of the assessors may have expertise in your particular area of healthcare and life sciences, but chances are that a number of them won’t.
As a result, you’ll need to make sure your application strikes a balance between being technical enough to show your project is legitimate, while not being so technical that someone outside your field would fail to understand what you are trying to achieve.
Let GrantTree’s Biomedical Catalyst Experts Maximise Your Chances
The Biomedical Catalyst grant is a fantastic opportunity to secure funding for game-changing R&D connected to healthcare challenges.
However, this competition is also extremely popular, meaning only a small percentage of applicants (less than 10% for some rounds) will receive funding.
GrantTree’s grant writing experts can significantly increase your chances of success. We have helped a host of life sciences companies, such as TidalSense, secure grants from this highly coveted competition, supercharging their development work.
To find out if you’re eligible and get help securing up to £2 million in grant funding, just get in touch.
