Ofgem and Innovate UK have opened the latest Discovery round of the Strategic Innovation Fund, with up to £200,000 available per project to test early-stage solutions to five major challenges facing Great Britain’s energy networks.
This is the first of four phases in a long-term innovation programme. If your Discovery project succeeds, you’ll be invited to apply for the larger Alpha, Beta and Deployment phases that follow. It’s a chance to get an idea off the ground, prove the value in solving a real network problem, and position yourself for much larger funding down the line.
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
This competition is open to collaborative projects only, and it works a little differently to most Innovate UK grants. To lead a Discovery project, you must be an Ofgem licensed energy network, and you must work with at least one other organisation as a project partner.
Eligible lead organisations are:
- Electricity distribution networks
- Electricity transmission
- Gas distribution networks
- Gas transmission
- The National Energy System Operator (NESO)
If you’re not a licensed network, you can still take part as a project partner, and Ofgem actively wants you involved. The funders particularly encourage projects that bring in technology developers and growth companies. Your partners can include:
- Academics
- Disruptors
- Independent researchers
- Other licensed energy network companies
- Start-ups
- Suppliers
- Small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs)
Each project partner must take responsibility for at least one deliverable in the Discovery phase, and the lead and at least one partner must both apply for funding. The funding itself is awarded to the lead network as a single legal entity.
Your Project
Your project must:
- Request no more than £200,000 in SIF funding, exclusive of VAT
- Start on the first of the month, after 1 September 2026
- End by 31 January 2027
- Be completed within a five month window
All funded work must support GB energy network infrastructure, consumers, operation, and utilisation, and you must intend to exploit the results from or within the UK.
Your project must also address one of the five Innovation Challenges, and you can only enter one. It’s the lead applicant’s job to make sure you’re entering the right one, because you can’t transfer your application later and an out of scope project won’t be assessed. The five challenges are:
- Challenge 1: Industrial and business connection acceleration
- Challenge 2: Faster build and maintenance
- Challenge 3: Instant use domestic energy devices
- Challenge 4: Eliminating energy outages
- Challenge 5: Decentralised system balancing
Across all five challenges, your project needs to show a clear net benefit to consumers. That can come through lower costs, reduced emissions, new access to revenues for network users, or new products, processes and services for the UK energy market.
How Much Funding Can I Apply For?
The amount you can claim depends on your total project costs and the contribution you make from private funds.
Individual projects can request up to £200,000 in SIF funding, exclusive of VAT. A total of up to £30 million is available across the five challenges in this Discovery round.
This competition is structured differently to a standard Innovate UK grant. Rather than funding a fixed percentage of your costs based on your company size, it’s designed to be awarded on a no subsidy basis, with funding going to the lead network. In most cases you’ll need to provide a minimum of 10% of your total project costs from private funds. The exception is if your project is completing an initial Discovery phase to develop an Innovation Charter, in which case no compulsory contribution is required.
Matched contributions that go beyond the 10% minimum are viewed as stronger value for money, so putting more in can help your case.
Funding Example
If your total project costs are £200,000, you’ll need to contribute at least £20,000 (10%) from private funds, and you can request up to £180,000 from the Strategic Innovation Fund.
You will need to fund the remaining costs from other sources, like private investment, your own resources, or other funding. Bear in mind that the £200,000 cap applies to the SIF funding you request, not to your total project costs.
How Do I Apply?
The deadline for applications is 24 June 2026.
Applications are submitted via Innovate UK’s Innovation Funding Service (IFS) portal.
The application is split into three sections:
Project Details
This section gives the assessors background on your project and is not scored. You’ll provide:
- Your application details, including project title, start date and duration
- Your application team and the organisations working with you
- Your chosen Innovation Challenge
- Your public description, which is published if you’re funded
Application Questions
There are 17 questions in total. Several are administrative, covering things like animal testing, international collaboration, export controls, trusted research, and whether NESO is involved. The rest are substantive questions, assessed against the SIF Eligibility Criteria, covering:
- Your impacts and benefits to consumers
- Your innovation justification
- Your intellectual property arrangements
- Your key outputs and dissemination plans
- Your problem statement and proposed solution
- Your project management, plan, milestones and risks
- Your portfolio integration and strategic alignment
- Your team and resources
- Your value for money
Each answer is limited to 400 words, and you can’t include any web links in your responses. You can add PDF appendices to support the strategic alignment and innovation justification questions, and the project management question requires you to upload a completed Project Management Template (an Excel spreadsheet) along with a Gantt chart. You’ll also need to submit a YouTube video of no more than 120 seconds summarising your project.
Finances
Each organisation in your project completes its own Discovery phase costs, organisation details and funding details, exclusive of VAT.
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 22 July 2026, and your Project Direction will be issued by 20 August 2026. Successful Discovery projects are then invited to apply for the Alpha phase.
Like with most competitions, Ofgem and Innovate UK take 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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