Creative Industries & Immersive grants
UK funding for games, immersive media, creative R&D and design-led innovation
Creative industries are the UK's fastest-growing export sector and a serious R&D funding opportunity. Innovate UK and AHRC back audience-facing innovation, interactive media, design technology and IP-rich creative tools. The trick is to frame the project around a genuine technical or creative R&D question, not just content production.
Funders funding creative industries & immersive
- AHRC
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Programmes that fit creative industries & immersive companies
Innovate UK Audience of the Future
Immersive and audience-facing content, tools and experiences.
AHRC Creative Industries R&D
Design-led and humanities-informed innovation, often in partnership with tech teams.
Horizon Europe Creative Industries
European calls for cultural and creative sector innovation and cross-border collaboration.
What assessors actually score
- A clear creative or technical R&D question, not just a production plan
- Audience or user evidence and a credible commercialisation route
- IP, rights and distribution strategy addressed upfront
Where we work in creative industries & immersive
Creative Industries & Immersive grants in our directory
Live programmes from the UK grant directory that suit creative industries & immersive projects. Deadlines move between rounds, so each listing links through to the current detail.
European Innovation Council
EIC Accelerator
Funding and investment for high-risk, high-potential deep-tech SMEs and start-ups scaling breakthrough innovations.
Advanced Research + Invention Agency
ARIA opportunity spaces
Rolling and programme-based funding for high-risk, high-reward research with the potential for transformative impact.
Innovate UK
[IUK] Small medium enterprise champions: Frontier AI – phase 1
The Frontier AI SME Champions competition aims to advance state-of-the-art AI and machine learning in the UK by supporting SMEs to validate ambitious innovations that could deliver step-change capabilities and enable new products, services or platforms.
EU funding
[Other EU FUNDING] Financial Support To Startups Open Call 2026
This call is open to startups (legal entities) established in EU Member States or in Third countries associated with Horizon Europe, that are currently in an active pre-seed, seed, or Series A fundraising round targeting the urban mobility market. Applicants must have a prototype, pilot, or MVP, a pre-money valuation not exceeding €50,000,000, and must not already be part of the EIT Urban Mobility equity portfolio.
Innovate UK
[IUK] Efficient, Structured and Controllable AI Systems
Innovate UK industrial research competition for novel reusable AI mechanisms that are efficient, structured and controllable. Projects start at TRL 1–3. Total eligible costs £50,000–£150,000.
ARIA
[ARIA] Robot Dexterity: Standards + benchmarks for dexterous robotics – Request for Proposal
Broad consortia encouraged: developers, manufacturers, research groups, end users, test facilities, standards organisations, including overseas partners. Prior ARIA funding not required.
Relevant client wins
Grants our team has won for companies solving comparable technical problems.
See all client wins
Pair your grant with R&D tax credits
R&D tax relief can recover part of the match funding a grant asks you to cover. Our R&D tax credit specialists plan both together. Use the R&D tax relief calculator to see what your spend could return, or read accountant vs R&D tax specialist.
Fund your creative industries & immersive R&D
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