In this blog I’ll share our origin story, celebrate our impact, and reveal what’s new for this year’s awards. Ready to get involved? Read on!
Snapshot: Women in Innovation Awards 2025 to 2026
Up to 60 awardees, more than any previous round, will receive a package of support that includes a grant of up to £75,000, bespoke business support, and a suite of training, networking and role-modelling opportunities. Additionally, we will offer the bespoke business support to other highly commended applicants.
This year’s award is aimed at women founders of late-stage startups, who operate within advanced manufacturing, digital and technologies, or life sciences – three of the high growth sectors in the UK’s Industrial Strategy.
Competition opens: 26 November 2025
Deadline for submissions: 4 February 2026
Stay informed by joining our Women in Innovation mailing list.
Where we started
Back in June 2016, I initiated the Innovate UK Women in Innovation Awards with a simple but urgent goal: to get more women engaging with innovation. At the time, only 14% of successful Innovate UK grant applicants were women. That stark statistic signalled that we were missing out on enormous talent, fresh ideas and economic growth potential.
So, we took action to change that.
We engaged with women innovators, learning about their journeys and experiences. Again and again, we heard the same challenges: access to funding and investment, a lack of visible role models, and difficulty finding the right networks and support.
We designed the Women in Innovation Awards to directly address those barriers.
Nine years on, I’m incredibly proud of how far we’ve come. The award doesn’t just offer funding and support – it offers belief, visibility and a sense of belonging. It’s empowering today’s trailblazing women and inspiring the innovators of tomorrow.
Just some of our 200 pioneering Women in Innovation Award winners. Credit: Innovate UK
Impact so far
Since 2016, the Innovate UK Women in Innovation Awards have invested over £11 million in 200 of the highest potential women innovators. Beyond those, it’s enabled us to build a thriving community of over 11,000 women business leaders who continue to support and lift each other up.
It’s also helped us drive a major shift in participation: the proportion of successful women-led applications across all Innovate UK competitions has risen from one in seven to one in three.
We listened. We learned. We’re acting.
Last year, the Women in Innovation community asked us to do more – to better understand their challenges, listen to their concerns and recognise the role Innovate UK could play in affecting system-wide change.
In response, we gathered extensive feedback through a series of roundtables, bringing together 50 diverse stakeholders – past applicants, award holders and ecosystem partners. These weren’t just meetings, they were spaces for honest conversations, collective insight and shared ambition.
Our Women in Innovation roundtables in London and Birmingham. Credit: Innovate UK
To keep the two-way dialogue going, we launched the Women in Innovation Community Forum – enabling us to bring real-world perspectives to our evolving innovation strategy and programmes.
These conversations led to something bigger – Innovate UK’s Pledge for Progress, featuring 10 clear commitments to better support women innovators. One of these commitments is to refine the Women in Innovation Awards to improve clarity, accessibility, impact and, ultimately, success rates.
What’s new this year?
The Women in Innovation Awards’ fundamental mission is unchanged. We champion women across the UK with the potential to be global industry leaders of the future, supporting their growth ambitions, whilst spotlighting them as role models for the next generation.
The 16 members of the Women in Innovation Community Forum. Credit: Innovate UK
But, thanks to your feedback – and with the support of our Women in Innovation Community Forum – we’ve made several important refinements to this year’s award. For transparency, the changes are:
Supporting more women than ever
This year, up to 60 awardees, more than any previous round, will receive a package of support that includes a grant of up to £75,000, bespoke business support, and a suite of training, networking and role-modelling opportunities.
Personalised business support for highly commended applicants
By recognising and supporting high-potential applicants, we can help build the skills needed to secure future funding, from Innovate UK or others.
Applicants must be founders or co-founders
Improved clarity and ensures funding goes to women-led businesses.
Applicants must be at the late startup stage, with a minimum viable product, early user interest or revenue, a growing team, and plans to raise significant capital within the next 12 to 24 months
Internal data and external research, including insights from the Gender Index and Women’s Enterprise Scotland, show that women-founders face some of the biggest barriers when growing and scaling their businesses. Women face persistent challenges accessing investment – only 2% of equity investment in the UK goes to fully women-founded businesses.
As such, we are targeting our support to later-stage startups, where need and impact are greatest. This support will include connections and exposure to our investor community.
Applicants must operate within advanced manufacturing, digital and technologies, or life sciences – three of the high growth sectors identified in the UK’s Industrial Strategy
Alignment with the UK’s Industrial Strategy addresses concerns from our community, who felt that previous rounds were too broad and over-subscribed. It also ensures our funding goes where national strength, investment, and regulatory support are concentrated, helping to drive inclusive, sustainable and resilient growth.
We are starting with these three sectors and will carefully review future areas of focus.
Potential applicants can access a quick ‘suitability checker’
Your time matters. Before investing effort in a full application, you can complete a quick check to confirm eligibility. The suitability checker will also signpost you to alternative opportunities if required.
Pre-recorded competition briefing and applicant support videos
On-demand resources are available from day one of the competition, so you can access crucial information when it suits you. This will be complimented by a live question and answer (Q&A) webinar.
Extended application window
As the competition is open over the festive period, we have extended the application window to 10 weeks instead of the usual eight – allowing applicants to balance downtime and caring responsibilities.
It also ensures a full eight weeks of access to our customer support and Reasonable Adjustments outside our Christmas closure period.
Better signposting to alternative opportunities
If this competition isn’t a good fit for you, we will direct you to other support opportunities from Innovate UK and our ecosystem partners.
Piloting new application question set
Innovate UK’s new, user-tested framework, featuring a standardised bank of questions, will be piloted in the this round of Women in Innovation. This aims to improve clarity and consistency, and enable applicants to repurpose responses for future opportunities.
Why this matters
Every one of these changes respond to feedback from you – our community. From a larger funding pot to clearer eligibility criteria to accessible application guidance – they address what we’ve heard during our conversations, surveys and roundtables.
The redesigned Women in Innovation Awards – and the trailblazing women it supports – also have the potential to deliver even greater socioeconomic benefit for the UK. As Liz Kendall, Secretary of State for Science, Innovation and Technology, noted:
The Women in Innovation Awards are unlocking the UK’s untapped potential within our community of women innovators; if men and women started and scaled businesses at the same rate this could be worth as much as £250 billion for the UK economy. This record £4.5 million investment will empower ambitious women founders to scale their businesses, drive economic growth, and inspire the next generation of innovators.
We’re committed to continually improving our support to women innovators. This is your award – and we’ll keep evolving it, together.
Get ready to apply
We know your time is precious. The new suitability checker and on-demand briefing video will help you make a swift, informed decision about whether to apply.
When you’re ready to move forward, explore our applicant support videos and register for the live applicant Q&A webinar. This will help you shape the strongest application possible.
Then head to the Women in Innovation Award page to begin your application.
Don’t miss a thing
Sign-up to our Women in Innovation mailing list to receive regular updates, useful resources, and details of future funding opportunities.
Thank you
A heartfelt thank you to our incredible Women in Innovation community, the members of our Community Forum, and ecosystem partners including:
- Let’s Fund More Women
- our investor partners
- British Business Bank
- UK Business Angels Association
- Invest in Women Taskforce
Your insights have directly shaped our most ambitious Women in Innovation Awards to date.
If you decide to apply – good luck! I cannot wait to meet our next cohort of awardees.