Call for Funding: Innovate UK Smart Grants 2024

The Smart programme is designed to support brand new and high impact innovations from micro, small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs), and their collaboration partners where appropriate, with the aim of accelerating their innovation journey and creating unique opportunities.

Through this support, Smart grants help unleash the potential of a broad spectrum of innovators, empowering them to turn visionary ideas into market leading solutions. With an emphasis on inclusive growth, these grants also support diversity in innovation, enabling a wider range of businesses to contribute to the UK’s competitive advantage on the global stage.

Themes 

• Your project must focus on:
  • Taking customer and user needs into account to deliver more desirable and useful solutions.
  • Identifying who is ready to buy your innovation.
  • Being developed, planned and resourced beyond the end of the Innovate UK funded project, taking into account the focus of any project partners and their existing commitments.
  • Fitting in with and complementing your ongoing business planning and development, product offerings and organizational structure to maximize chances of success.

Funding Information

• Up to £25 million is available to fund innovation projects in this competition. Funding will be in the form of a grant.
• If your organization’s work on the project is commercial or economic, your funding request must not exceed the limits below. These limits apply even if your organization normally acts non-economically but for the purpose of this project will be undertaking commercial or economic activity.
• The balance between your total eligible project costs and the amount of grant awarded must be funded by the organization receiving the grant.
• For feasibility studies and industrial research projects, you can get funding for your eligible project costs of:
  • up to 70% if you are a micro or small organization.
  • up to 60% if you are a medium sized organization.
  • up to 50% if you are a large organization.
• For experimental development projects which are nearer to market, you can get funding for your eligible project costs of:
  • up to 45% if you are a micro or small organization.
  • up to 35% if you are a medium sized organization.
  • up to 25% if you are a large organization.

Ineligible Funding

• They are not funding projects:
  • That do not meet the competition scope or eligibility criteria.
  • Where the technology is already available.
  • That do not address the size, potential and access to market for their innovation.
  • That do not evidence the potential for their idea to lead to significant return on investment (ROI), positive economic impact, growth and scale up of the business.
  • That do not provide clear and realistic plans to commercialize their innovation as soon as possible posts project completion.
  • Where other Innovate UK funding support is available and more appropriate.
• They will not fund commercialization activities such as marketing and sales.
• They cannot fund projects that are:
  • Dependent on export performance, for example giving a subsidy to a baker on the condition that it exports a certain quantity of bread to another country.
  • Dependent on domestic inputs usage, for example giving a subsidy to a baker on the condition that it uses 50% UK flour in their product.

Eligibility Criteria

• Your project must:
  • Start by 01 April 2025.
  • End by 31 March 2027.
  • Include at least one micro, small or medium enterprise (SME) as the lead or a collaborative grant claiming partner.
  • Follow specific rules depending on its duration.
  • Carry out all of its project work in the UK.
  • Intend to exploit the results from or in the UK.
• Projects must always start on the first of the month. You must not start your project until your Grant Offer Letter has been approved by Innovate UK. Any delays within Project Setup may mean they need to delay your project start date.
• The end by date is the date by which all funding for this round of the competition must end. Your contracted 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.
  • be single or collaborative.
• If your project’s duration is 19 to 24 months, it must:
  • have total eligible project costs between £100,000 and £1 million.
  • be collaborative.
• Lead organization
  • To lead a project or work alone your organization must:
    • Be a UK registered SME if you want to work alone.
    • Be a UK registered business of any size, or a research and technology organisation (RTO) if your proposal is collaborative.
    • Include at least one grant claiming micro, small or medium-sized enterprise (SME) if you are a large business or RTO and wish to collaborate with other UK registered businesses, research organizations, academic organizations, public sector organizations or charities.
    • Claim grant funding.

For more information, visit GOV.UK.