Deadline Date: November 19, 2025
Innovate UK, in partnership with the Department for Science, Innovation and Technology (DSIT), is inviting UK-registered organisations to apply for the Agentic AI Pioneers Prize, offering a £1 million fund to accelerate the adoption of Agentic AI in design across Advanced Manufacturing, Health and Life Sciences, and the Creative Industries by supporting solution development through expert mentorship and challenge-based competition.
The Agentic AI Pioneers Prize is a UK-focused initiative aimed at promoting innovation in design using advanced AI systems that take initiative, co-create ideas, automate tasks, collaborate with humans, and coordinate complex processes. The competition begins with an Expression of Interest (EOI) stage, where organisations are assessed on their intent to participate, expertise in Agentic AI as applied to design, and in-house capability to deliver solutions within the given timeframe. Successful applicants will advance to Phase 2, the Development Phase, which opens on 1 December 2025.
During Phase 2, participants will select from specific challenge statements related to Advanced Manufacturing, Health and Life Sciences, and the Creative Industries. Applicants will receive one-to-one mentorship from the Catapult Network to leverage challenge statements, access data pathways, and optimise compute resources. Teams are expected to develop and evidence single or multi-agent AI solutions that directly address these challenges while demonstrating innovation and measurable improvements.
Participants will submit a Project Report by 23 February 2026, detailing their technical approach, workflow integration, MVP readiness, risk management, potential commercial impact, and scalability. Shortlisted teams will be invited for interviews between 9 to 20 March 2026 to demonstrate their solutions.
The prize fund totals £1 million, with up to four cash prizes awarded to top-performing solutions: £250,000 each for Advanced Manufacturing, Health and Life Sciences, and the Creative Industries, and a further £250,000 for the overall best solution among the winners. Prizes are paid to the lead organisation in a hub-and-spoke model, and all IP rights remain with the applicants.
Agentic AI in design can include applications such as conceptual ideation and discovery, process automation, human-AI collaboration, and lifecycle or systems engineering. Example themes include smarter drug discovery, next-gen material recipes, cell and gene therapy optimisation, innovative product definitions, smarter factory planning, proactive assurance, generative storyboarding, fashion co-creation, and architectural space planning.
For more information, visit GOV.UK.
