You must read the full eligibility, scope and guidance for the competition you wish to apply into.
We recommend you attend the applicant briefing event. We will provide all information relating to the competition and answer questions.
The competition guidance documents include all information about how to complete the application and what you need to include.
Submitting your application
Most of our competitions close at 11:00am UK time. If that is different it will be clearly stated in the brief. We cannot guarantee other government or third party sites will always show the correct competition information.
Any technical difficulties when submitting your application caused by your own circumstances, such as poor internet connection, will not be considered for an extension.
The competition will automatically close for applications on the deadline and we will not discuss any late submissions.
Previous applications
If you have previously submitted an application that reached our assessment stage, you can re-apply once more with the same proposal.
If there are minor differences to the proposal, but it is judged by us to be ‘not materially different’, the same rule applies.
Your previous projects
Before you start your application you must make sure you comply with the specific competition eligibility criteria around previous projects.
A previous project is defined as one where the research and development work has been completed and the final reports have been submitted.
You are still able to apply for a competition if you are currently involved in a live project and the competition allows.
If you have been awarded funding by Innovate UK or UK Research and Innovation in a previous competition, as the lead or sole organisation, but did not make a substantial effort to exploit that award, your organisation will not be awarded any more funding by us.
You will not be able to contest our decision.
We will:
- assess your efforts in the previous competition against your exploitation plan for that project
- review the monitoring service providers’ reports and any other relevant sources for evidence
- document our decision, which will be made by three team members, and communicate it to you in writing
Under the terms of Innovate UK funding, you must submit either a statement of expenditure (SoE) or an independent accountant’s report (IAR) with your final grant claim.
Any partners with individual total eligible project costs above £50,000 must provide evidence with an IAR.
If you or any organisation in your consortium failed to submit an SoE or IAR on a previous project, we will not award funding to you in any other competition until we have received the documents.
Application form
Your application will only be sent for assessment if it demonstrates:
- clear innovation
- that you meet the competition eligibility criteria and scope
- it is different from another project that has already received funding
- a use of professional and unthreatening language
- an answer to all the question criteria
- effective collaboration where required
- that you have not deliberately increased the word count using punctuation
If you are submitting a new application and are unsuccessful, you can only resubmit an updated application if the specific competition allows you to.
You can improve your application based on the assessors’ feedback and the scope of the competition. Addressing assessor feedback in a previously submitted application does not guarantee a higher score.