Innovate UK is offering grants of up to £400k to UK businesses developing commercial quantum technology with a partner in the Netherlands.
The competition has a £1.5 million pot and funds projects in quantum networking, quantum computing software, quantum sensing and imaging, and the manufacture of quantum hardware. Every project needs at least one Dutch business on board, and that business applies for its own funding from the Netherlands Enterprise Agency (RVO).
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 start an application, you must be a UK registered business. You can be a large company or a micro, small or medium-sized enterprise.
You must collaborate with at least one for-profit business registered in the Netherlands. It must be a separate legal entity, not linked to any UK partner, and it must apply to RVO for its own funding. Both applications must use the same project title.
Either a UK or a Dutch organisation can manage the project as project lead, but only a UK business can start the application with Innovate UK.
You can include these UK registered organisations as collaborators:
- Academic institutions
- Businesses of any size
- Charities
- Not-for-profit organisations
- Public sector organisations
- Research and technology organisations (RTOs)
You can lead one application and collaborate on two more. If you're not leading, you can collaborate on as many applications as you like.
Your Project
Your project must:
- Have a grant request of between £250k and £400k
- Last between 18 and 24 months
- Not start before 1 June 2027
- End by 30 May 2029
As a UK partner, you must carry out most of your project work in the UK, spend most of your funding in the UK, and intend to exploit the project results from or within the UK.
Your project must also:
- Aim to commercialise the results, in the UK or globally
- Focus on developing, prototyping and testing commercial quantum technology in at least one of the four themes below
- Have a civilian purpose
- Keep each organisation and each country to 70% or less of total project costs
- Limit subcontractors to 20% of the UK partners' total eligible costs
- Show a balanced technical contribution from both countries
The four themes are:
- Adopting quantum sensing and imaging for commercial uses, in areas including life sciences, healthcare and public infrastructure
- Developing software or hardware that advances the commercial deployment of entanglement based quantum networking
- Proving commercially viable manufacturing and assembly processes for hardware like detectors, control electronics, laser and optical systems, and vacuum and cryogenic systems
- Quantum computing algorithms, software applications and hybrid workflows
Innovate UK encourages projects that include a testbed provider or pilot production line in the UK or the Netherlands. These can sit in a national lab, research organisation or university research facility.
Innovate UK won't fund projects that:
- Are market research, road mapping or landscape studies
- Aren't focused on advancing the commercial use of second generation quantum technologies, which exploit superposition and entanglement
- Depend on export performance
- Depend on using a set percentage of UK components
- Sit outside the four themes
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 £250k to £400k.
Applying as a Company
| Project Type | Micro and Small | Medium | Large |
|---|---|---|---|
| Percentage of Costs Covered* | 70% | 60% | 50% |
*This competition funds feasibility studies and industrial research projects. 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 eligible project costs of £500,000, you can apply for a grant of up to £350,000. You will need to fund the remaining £150,000 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 charity, not-for-profit, public sector organisation, research organisation or RTO
- Up to 80% of full economic costs (FEC) if you're an academic institution using the Transparent Approach to Costing (TRAC) method
How Do I Apply?
The deadline for applications is 9 February 2027.
Applications are submitted via Innovate UK's Innovation Funding Service (IFS) portal.
The application is split into four sections:
Project Details
This unscored section gives background on your project and covers:
- 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 16 questions in total:
- Six unscored administrative questions covering topics like animal testing, export licences and trusted research
- Ten scored questions covering your business need, 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 and team questions. You must include one for the project management question, showing your project plan or Gantt chart, and one for the risk question, showing your risk register.
Finances
Each organisation must complete its own project costs, organisation details and funding details.
Project Impact
Each partner must complete this unscored section before you can submit your application.
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 29 March 2027. Innovate UK and RVO must each select your project independently for it to receive funding.
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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