The latest grant opportunities for UK businesses and research organisations.
Think you might be eligible for a grant? Struggling to keep up with which competitions might be relevant to your organisation? You’re in the right place.
Curated by GrantTree’s funding experts, Grants Watch recaps the latest and greatest funding calls for UK innovators, so you can focus on growing your business.
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In this edition:
- A whopping eight new European Space Agency competitions for companies harnessing space technology and assets across a wide range of fields
- Three European Innovation Council schemes, offering up to €4 million to supercharge your R&D
- Up to £2 million of late-stage funding, courtesy of the industry-agnostic Innovation Loan scheme
Not sure what to apply for? I’ll tell you.
Finding relevant grants can be tricky. As can knowing whether you’re eligible and, more importantly, actually stand a chance of winning. I can help.
Book a free Eligibility and Competitiveness Assessment with me, and in less than 30 minutes, I’ll tell you:
- What grants you’re eligible for
- Which ones you have the best chance of winning
- What other types of government funding you’re eligible for
Most competitions are only open for a short time. And writing a competitive application takes weeks. So, if you see any calls that suit your R&D, make sure you book your assessment as soon as possible.
Contents
Biotechnology Business Incubation Centre 2025
Funding available: Up to £50,000 in R&D funding, plus a £10,000 innovation voucher
Deadline: 3 September 2025 at 11 am
Sectors: Biotechnology
The Biotechnology Business Incubation Centre (Bio BIC), a joint venture between the UKRI’s Biotechnology and Biological Sciences Research Council and Science and Technology Facilities Council, is tasked with turning early-stage biotechnologies into commercial successes.
To apply for this early-stage funding:
- Your company must be less than 5 years old
- And majority-owned by founders and employees
- You must prove your project is beyond the concept stage
In addition, you need to have received one of the following:
- UKRI funding
- Innovate UK commercialisation funding, such as an Innovation Loan
- Funding from (or have participated in) a UKRI accelerator or pre-incubation support programme
Learn more about this Biotechnology Business Incubation Centre 2025 competition.
Grants Eligibility Quiz
Find out if you’re eligible for a game-changing innovation grant by answering these eight simple questions.
DRIVE35 Scale-Up: Feasibility Studies
Funding available: Up to £750,000 million
Deadline: 3 September 2025 at 11 am
Sectors: Automotive
The Driving Research and Investment in Vehicle Electrification programme, ‘DRIVE35’, provides funding for zero-emission vehicle technology innovation.
The scale-up: feasibility studies competition provides grants for feasibility studies into deploying UK manufacturing facilities for new technologies.
You can apply for a grant covering up to 50% of your costs if you’re a large business and up to 60% if you’re an SME.
DRIVE35 is delivered by Innovate UK, the Department for Business and Trade, and the Advanced Propulsion Centre UK (APC).
DRIVE35 Innovation Fund
Funding available: Up to £25 million
Deadline: 1 October 2025 at 11 am
Sectors: Automotive
Also part of the DRIVE35 programme, the Innovation Fund competition offers substantial grants to help companies develop and demonstrate cutting-edge zero-emission vehicle technologies.
This competition is split into two strands:
- Collaborate – Supports collaborative projects (involving more than one organisation) that design and develop technologies leading to commercialisation. Offers grants of £2.5 million to £25 million.
- Demonstrate – Funds the development of products or process ‘demonstrators’, which showcase the benefits of your project work. Offers grants of £500,000 to £1.5 million.
Your project must be at least 50% match-funded. That means that your grant will only cover up to half of your project costs. You must fund the remainder of your costs with other sources, like equity investment or revenues.
EIC Accelerator
Funding available: Up to €2.5 million
Deadline: 1 October 2025 for stage 2 of the application
Sectors: All
Run by Europe’s leading innovation funding agency, the European Innovation Council, the Accelerator scheme offers generous grants for UK startups and scale-ups looking to fund late-stage R&D to take mature innovations to market.
Accelerator has two strands:
- Open – Open to all fields of science and technology, but more competitive
- Challenges – For innovations focused on specific areas* of technology
*The specific areas are:
- Acceleration of advanced materials development and upscaling along the value chain
- Biotechnology-driven low-emission food and feed production systems
- GenAI4EU: Creating European Champions in Generative AI
- Innovative in-space servicing, operations, robotics and technologies for resilient EU space infrastructure
- Breakthrough innovations for future mobility
UK companies are eligible for all EIC competitions as the UK is associated to Horizon Europe, under which the EIC was established.
Learn more about the EIC Accelerator.
EIC Pathfinder
Funding available: Up to €4 million
Deadline: 21 May 2025 for the Open strand and 29 October 2025 for the Challenges strand
Sectors: All
EIC Pathfinder offers grants to UK startups and scaleups looking to perform R&D to validate early-stage, potentially ground-breaking innovations (TRL 1-2).
Like Accelerator, Pathfinder has two strands:
- Open – Grants of up to €3 million for consortia featuring at least three independent organisations from different EU member states and associated countries
- Challenges – up to €4 million for single applicants and small consortia whose R&D aligns with specific themes
The themes are:
- Biotech for climate-resilient crops and plant-based biomanufacturing
- Generative-AI-based agents to revolutionise medical diagnosis and the treatment of cancer
- Towards autonomous robot collectives delivering collaborative tasks in dynamic, unstructured construction environments
- Waste-to-value devices: Circular production of renewable fuels, chemicals and materials
The deadlines are 21 May 2025 for the Open strand and 29 October 2025 for the Challenges strand.
Learn more about EIC Pathfinder.
EIC Transition
Funding available: Up to €2.5 million
Deadline: 17 September 2025
Sectors: All
Unlike Pathfinder and Accelerator, EIC Transition is only open to companies that have already received grant funding from one of the following competitions and organisations:
- EIC Pathfinder
- European Research Council proof of concept grants
- Horizon Europe research and innovation actions
- European Defence Fund (EDF)
Transition funds development work that is designed to take transformative innovations from “lab to market” and is open to both single organisations and small consortia.
Transition has just one strand, Open, which accepts applications from all areas of technology.
Learn more about EIC Transition.
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European Space Agency Competitions
Funding available: Varies by competition
Deadline: Varies by competition
Sectors: Outlined below
The European Space Agency has just announced eight new competitions for UK innovators. These calls will support projects that look to harness space technology and assets in any of the following areas:
- Agriculture
- Coastal resilience to
- European rail
- Metaverse
- Hazardous materials
- Port safety and efficiency
- Retail
- Smart cities
- European rail
The maximum funding available from these competitions varies from €75,000 to €500,000, with grants covering 50%-80% of project costs for businesses.
Future Leaders Fellowships: Round 10
Funding available: Up to £3 million
Deadline: 5 November 2025, 11 am
Sectors: All
This UKRI-funded programme offers large grants, covering up to four years of project work, to early-career innovators looking to tackle complex and novel challenges.
The competition is designed to support excellence in innovation and develop the next generation of research and innovation leaders.
Highlights:
- Up to four years of project work funded
- Applicants can apply from any sector
- Open to people working at a range of non-academic organisations, including businesses, catapults and charities
If you’re applying as an eligible research organisation, you need to apply through the UKRI Funding Service.
Learn more about the Future Leaders Fellowship award.
Innovation Loans
Funding available: Up to £5 million
Deadline: 27 August for Round 22 | 22 October for Round 23
Sectors: All
Innovate UK’s underutilised Innovation Loans Future Economy scheme offers £100,000 to £5 million in debt financing for startups and scaleups looking for funding to commercialise a late-stage technology.
Innovation Loans offer a range of favourable features, including below-market interest rates and repayment terms of up to 7 years. They also cover up to 100% of project costs, more than most Innovate UK competitions, which generally max out at 70%.
Innovation Loans are especially well-suited for companies that have already received grant funding, as they are designed to support innovations that have reached the stage of development typically achieved after a grant-funded project.
Learn more about Innovate UK Innovation Loans.
Sovereign AI
Funding available: Up to £84,000
Deadline: 10 September 2025
Sectors: AI
The Sovereign AI competition is looking to support projects that validate and advance new AI capabilities. As the title suggests, this competition was launched to support the UK’s sovereignty in AI objectives, which describe the government’s ambition to harness this technology to drive economic growth and increase the country’s international competitiveness.
To qualify, your project must focus on one or more of the following themes:
- Fundamental AI research
- AI for materials discovery
- AI for biosciences and health
- AI for defence and national security
- AI-aided design
Learn more about the Sovereign AI competition.
Let GrantTree Get You Funded
Looking for grant funding for your business or research organisation? GrantTree can help.
Over the last 15 years, we’ve secured more than £500 million for innovative projects. Calling on that unmatched experience, we can help you understand which competitions you are not only eligible for but have a good chance of winning, helping you make the most of the time you invest in your application.
We can also help you understand what other types of government funding you might be eligible for, like R&D Tax Relief.
To find out what funding you should apply for, just book a meeting with me at whatever time suits you!
