Application Deadline: Wednesday 13 April 2022 11:00am
Smart is Innovate UK’s ‘open grant funding’ programme.
Innovate UK, part of UK Research and Innovation, is investing up to £25 million in the best game-changing and commercially viable innovative or disruptive ideas. All proposals must be business focused.
Innovate UK secured an uplift in funding in the 2021 spending review, which will enable us to provide an improved range of funding and business support from April 2022. This round of the competition will be the last in the current format.
Future rounds of the Smart grant will be more focused on supporting proposals from UK based innovative businesses that are destined for early, successful commercialisation, growth and exports.
Applications can come from any area of technology and be applied to any part of the economy, such as, but not exclusively:
- net zero
- health and wellbeing
- technologies
- the arts, design and media
We welcome projects that overlap with the Innovate UK Plan for Action. This is not a requirement, and we are also keen to support projects in other areas.
Equality, diversity and inclusion (EDI) considerations are highly encouraged where appropriate in your proposal. You are prompted to consider EDI as part of the application process. Applications will continue to be assessed on their innovation merit, where innovation is defined as the potential for commercially successful exploitation of ideas.
In applying to this competition, you are entering into a highly competitive process where your chance of success in securing funding will depend on the number and quality of applications submitted.
Eligibility
Your project must:
- include at least one micro, small or medium-sized enterprise (SME) as the lead or a collaborative grant claiming partner
- start by 1 October 2022
- end by 30 September 2025
- follow specific rules dependent on its duration
The end by date is the date by which all funding for this round of the competition must end. Your contracted project end date will not be extended.
If your project’s duration is 6 to 18 months it:
- must have total eligible project costs between £100,000 and £500,000
- can be single or collaborative
If your project’s duration is 19 to 36 months, it must:
- have total eligible project costs between £100,000 and £2 million
- be collaborative
If you want to submit a collaborative project from 19 months to 36 months duration with total eligible project costs of up to £3 million as a permitted exception, you must email support@iuk.ukri.org. You must provide full justification at least 10 working days before the competition closes. We will decide whether to approve your request.
Unless you have already received our authorisation, any application submitted that does not meet the criteria will be marked as ineligible and will not be sent for assessment.
Lead organisation
To lead a project your organisation must:
- be an SME if you want to work alone
- be a UK registered business of any size or a research and technology organisation (RTO) if collaborative
- include at least one SME if you are a large business or RTO and wish to collaborate with other UK registered businesses, research organisations, academic organisations, public sector organisations or charities
- claim grant funding
- carry out all your project work in the UK
- intend to commercially exploit the results from or in the UK
Academic institutions cannot lead or work alone.
Official Website: 2022 Innovate UK Smart Grants Program
