Innovate UK grant writers
Innovate UK: non-dilutive funding for genuinely innovative UK businesses
How the process works
Step 1
Competition brief & eligibility
We check your project against the live competition scope on the Innovation Funding Service and confirm your business is UK-registered and eligible before you invest time in a bid.
Step 2
Application build
We draft the technical narrative, project finances and any consortium agreements needed, structured against the published question set and scoring criteria. Typically three to six weeks of work ahead of the deadline.
Step 3
Submission & assessment
Applications are scored by independent assessors against Innovate UK's published criteria. Feedback usually follows within 8-12 weeks, and we help you plan grant set-up or resubmission either way.
Deadlines and award values follow the live competition on the Innovation Funding Service. Confirm figures and dates at ukri.org/councils/innovate-uk.
What Innovate UK funds
What each programme funds, what assessors score and where applications lose marks.
Innovate UK Investor Partnerships
Typically £250k-£2m of grant, matched against a qualifying investment round
Investor Partnerships is Innovate UK's route for high-growth UK businesses raising private investment alongside a grant. Innovate UK funds the R&D project while an approved investor backs the wider company, so the two sources of capital reinforce each other.
Read the Innovate UK Investor Partnerships guideMission-led CR&D competitions
£100k-£2m depending on competition scope and consortium size
Innovate UK runs collaborative R&D competitions tied to specific missions, from the Clean Energy Superpower Mission to Zero Emission Vessels and quantum computing hardware. These competitions fund consortia solving a defined challenge, not open-ended research.
Read the Mission-led CR&D competitions guideInnovate UK Innovation Loans
£100k-£1m, at a fixed interest rate below commercial market rates
Innovation Loans are Innovate UK's repayable finance route for SMEs whose technology has moved beyond feasibility and needs capital to reach commercial launch. Unlike grants, loans are repaid, but on terms designed for high-growth innovators.
Read the Innovate UK Innovation Loans guideKnowledge Transfer Partnerships
Part-funded: smaller businesses typically contribute around 33% of project costs
A KTP places a talented graduate inside your business for one to three years, supervised jointly by your company and an academic partner, to deliver a strategic innovation project. Innovate UK part-funds the partnership.
Read the Knowledge Transfer Partnerships guideBiomedical Catalyst
Feasibility awards from £50k; primer and late-stage awards up to £2m
Biomedical Catalyst funds UK life sciences and healthtech SMEs developing innovative solutions to healthcare challenges, from early feasibility studies through to late-stage clinical and commercial development.
Read the Biomedical Catalyst guideWhat Innovate UK assessors actually score
The Innovation Funding Service asks a defined question set for every competition. Independent assessors mark each answer against published criteria, and only the highest-scoring applications above the funding threshold are awarded.
Innovation & technical merit
Is the project genuinely novel, technically or commercially risky, and going beyond incremental product development? Assessors want evidence of real state-of-the-art advance.
Route to market & impact
A credible commercialisation plan, market evidence and the wider economic or societal benefit of the project. The section where many strong technical teams lose marks.
Team & project management
Evidence that your team, partners and project plan can actually deliver the work, on time and within the proposed budget.
The people who write your submission
Named consultants who have written, won and assessed Innovate UK applications, so they know exactly what a strong submission looks like from the other side of the table.
Dr Felix Warren
Lead Innovation Consultant
Writes Innovate UK submissions and knows how assessors weigh technical risk against commercial potential, with wins across Innovate UK competitions, Biomedical Catalyst and Horizon Europe.
Dr Thomas Kelly
Lead Innovation Consultant
Has written and won Innovate UK applications and reviewed submissions, so he reads a draft the way an assessor does, across Innovate UK, Horizon Europe and NIHR.
Jessica Vernon
Lead Innovation Consultant
Writes across the full Innovate UK and Horizon Europe pipeline, from Innovate UK competitions and Innovation Loans through to EIC Accelerator and Pathfinder bids.
Our team has helped win over £190m in grant funding, with 100s of applications supported and an average return on investment above 25x.
Meet the full teamAre you eligible?
- A UK-registered business, of any size, carrying out the funded work in the UK
- A genuinely innovative product, process or service, not incremental development
- Able to provide match funding for your share of eligible project costs
- Willing to collaborate with partners where the competition requires it
Intervention rates and match funding requirements vary by programme and company size: typically up to 70% of eligible costs for micro and small businesses on feasibility work, around 45% for industrial research by larger organisations, and up to 70% for SMEs on a typical competition. We help you work out the real cost to your business before you commit.
Beyond Innovate UK, we also support UKRI research council funding, Horizon Europe (including EIC Accelerator and Eurostars), ESA and the Advanced Propulsion Centre, and we'll tell you which funder is the strongest fit before you invest weeks in a submission.
Free download
UK grant readiness checklist
Two pages, no email required. Every eligibility, funding, partner and evidence test to clear before you write, plus a quick reference on what Innovate UK, Horizon Europe, Eurostars, EIC, KTP, SBRI and defence funding each score hardest.
- 48-point readiness checklist
- Programme guide: what each funder really tests
Thinking about an Innovate UK application?
Book a free consultation and we'll assess your fit against the current competition before you write a word.