Innovate UK is offering UK SMEs grants of up to £350k to develop game-changing clean energy, life sciences and engineering biology innovations with a German partner.
Innovate UK is working with Germany's Federal Ministry for Economic Affairs and Energy (BMWE) to invest up to £2.4 million in collaborative R&D projects. Your German partner applies separately to Germany's ZIM programme, and both funders need to back your project for it to go ahead.
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 micro, small or medium-sized enterprise (SME). SMEs can lead a collaborative project, involving multiple organisations. You can't apply on your own.
You must collaborate with at least one Germany-registered SME that's applying to Germany's ZIM programme. Your German partner must be a separate legal entity and can't be linked to any UK partner.
The following UK organisations can join your project as collaborators:
- Academic institutions
- Businesses of any size
- Research and technology organisations (RTOs)
Your German partner doesn't join your Innovate UK application and won't receive any Innovate UK funding. It's funded by ZIM instead, through its own parallel application.
You can only lead one application, but you can also collaborate on up to two more.
Your Project
Your project must:
- Have a grant request of between £100k and £350k
- Last between 12 and 24 months
- Start on 1 August 2027
- End by June 2029
Most of the project work must take place in the UK and Germany. As a UK partner, you must carry out most of your work in the UK, and you must intend to exploit the project results from or within the UK.
Your project must also:
- Be an industrial research project
- Focus on clean energy, life sciences or engineering biology
- Have a clear route to market within two to three years of the project finishing
- Keep subcontractor costs to no more than 20% of the UK partners' total eligible costs
- Show a balanced technical contribution from both countries, with no single country or partner making up more than 70% of total project costs
- Show a clear intention to commercialise the results
Innovate UK won't fund projects that:
- Don't have an eligible German partner
- Pose a risk to the UK's national security, economic security or strategic interests
- Request a grant of less than £100k or more than £350k
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 £100k to £350k per project.
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 you're a small company with £500k of eligible project costs, you could receive a grant of £350k. You will need to fund the remaining £150k from other sources, like R&D Tax Relief, investment or loans.
Applying as a Non-Commercial Organisation
Research organisations doing 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're a research organisation or RTO
- Up to 80% of full economic costs (FEC) if you're an academic institution, like a university
How Do I Apply?
The deadline for applications is 1 December 2026.
Applications are submitted via Innovate UK's Innovation Funding Service (IFS) portal.
Your German partner must submit its own application to ZIM, in German, through AiF Projekt GmbH. If they haven't made a ZIM application before, AiF recommends getting in touch at least six weeks before the deadline.
The application is split into four sections:
Project Details
This section covers your:
- Application details
- Application team
- Project summary
- Public description
- Research category
- Scope
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 business need, technical approach, team, market, route to market, wider 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. A project plan or Gantt chart and a risk register are mandatory.
Finances
Each UK partner enters its own project costs, organisation details and funding details.
Project Impact
This unscored section gives background on your project, and every UK partner must 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 30 April 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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