UK Biomedical Catalyst: Industry-led R&D (Round 2)

Innovate UK, part of UK Research and Innovation, will invest up to £20 million in projects to support UK registered businesses to develop innovative solutions to address significant health or healthcare challenges.

Your project can focus on:

• disease prevention and proactive management of health and chronic conditions
• earlier and better detection and diagnosis of disease, leading to better patient outcomes
• tailored treatments that either change the underlying disease or offer potential cures
• transforming the delivery of healthcare
• the development of digital health technologies
• consumer focused self-care

Specific Themes

Your project can focus on any health or healthcare sector or discipline including:

• biosciences
• advanced therapies, gene and cell therapies
• diagnostic, medical technology and devices
• digital health
• independent living and wellbeing
• precision medicine
• preclinical technologies and drug target discovery
• therapeutic and medicine development
• data driven health
• consumer health
• preventative health

Funding Information

• Project size: Your project’s total costs must be between £150,000 and £4 million. The total grant cannot exceed £2 million.
• Up to £20 million has been allocated to fund innovation projects in this competition. Funding will be in the form of a grant. You must not claim more than £2 million in grant against your total project costs. A minimum of 50% of your total eligible project costs must be incurred by SMEs, if collaborative.
• If the majority of your organisation’s work on the project is commercial or economic, your funding request must not exceed the limits below. These limits apply even if your organisation normally acts non-economically but for the purpose of this project will be undertaking commercial or economic activity.
• For industrial research projects, you could get funding for your eligible project costs of:
  • up to 70% if you are a micro or small organisation
  • up to 60% if you are a medium sized organisation
  • up to 50% if you are a large organisation
• For experimental development projects which are nearer to market, you could get funding for your eligible project costs of:
  • up to 45% if you are a micro or small organisation
  • up to 35% if you are a medium sized organisation
  • up to 25% if you are a large organisation

Who can apply?

• Your project
  • Your project must:
    • not exceed a grant request of £2 million
    • have at least 50% of the total project costs shared by the SMEs, if collaborative
    • start by 01 June 2024
    • end by 31 May 2027
    • last between 6 months and 36 months
    • 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 and this must be stated within your application. Your project start date will be reflected in your grant offer letter if you are successful.
  • You must only include eligible project costs in your application. If you have requested an overall grant of over £500,000, and your online application is successful at Stage 1, you may be invited to attend an interview.
  • Under current restrictions, this competition will not fund any procurement, commercial, business development or supply chain activity with any Russian and Belarusian entity as lead, partner or subcontractor. This includes any goods or services originating from a Russian and Belarusian source.
• Lead organisation
  • To lead a project or work alone your organisation must be a UK registered micro, small or medium-sized enterprise (SME).
  • Academic institutions cannot lead or work alone.
• Project team
  • To collaborate with the lead, your organisation must be one of the following UK registered:
    • business of any size
    • academic institution
    • charity
    • not for profit
    • public sector organisation
    • research and technology organisation (RTO)
  • Each partner organisation must be invited into the Innovation Funding Service by the lead to collaborate on a project. Once partners have accepted the invitation, they will be asked to login or to create an account in the Innovation Funding Service.
  • Partners must accept terms and conditions (T&Cs) and complete the subsidy question in order for the application to be submitted.
• Non-funded partners
  • Your project can include partners that do not receive any of this competition’s funding, for example non-UK businesses. Their costs will count towards the total project costs.
• Subcontractors
  • Subcontractors are allowed in this competition.
  • Subcontractors can be from anywhere in the UK and you must select them through your usual procurement process.
  • You can use subcontractors from overseas but must make the case in your application as to why you could not use suppliers from the UK.
  • You must provide a detailed rationale, evidence of the potential UK contractors you approached and the reasons why they were unable to work with you. They will not accept a cheaper cost as a sufficient reason to use an overseas subcontractor.
  • All subcontractor costs must be justified and appropriate to the total project costs.
  • Extenuating circumstances where overseas work may be allowable include, for example; clinical trial in a specific patient population. The application assessors will be asked to judge whether you have sufficiently made a case for the use of overseas subcontractors.
• Number of applications
  • An SME can only lead on one application but can be included as a collaborator in a further 2 applications.
  • If an SME is not leading on any application, it can collaborate in any number of applications.
  • A research and technology organisation (RTO), a large business, academic institution, charity, not for profit, or public sector organisation can collaborate on any number of applications.
• Previous applications
  • You can use a previously submitted application to apply for this competition.
  • They will not award you funding if you have:
    • failed to exploit a previously funded project
    • an overdue independent accountant’s report
    • failed to comply with grant terms and conditions.

For more information, visit Innovate UK.