Demand management
Demand management is being applied to this funding opportunity. Further details are provided in the ‘additional information’ section.
Aim
Through this strategic investment, EPSRC aims to establish a national centre that will build the skills and capabilities that directly enable the emergence of new quantum enabled companies and commercially viable intellectual property from UK research organisations.
By equipping researchers with the ability to identify market driven opportunities, generate and protect IP, form and scale spinouts, and work effectively with industry and investors, the Centre will help translate early discoveries into commercial opportunities. In doing so, it will play a pivotal role in strengthening the UK quantum technologies sector, driving long-term economic growth and securing national competitive advantage.
The UK Centre for Quantum Commercialisation Skills will respond to the growing need for targeted support in enabling researchers to guide quantum technologies toward real world use.
The centre will provide coordinated, sector specific support that strengthens the UK’s commercialisation skills pipeline, complements existing investments, and develops the talent needed to navigate the steps from discovery research to practical deployment.
The centre will address skills gaps and differing levels of training provision across the quantum ecosystem, supporting the coordinated national approach recommended in the UK Quantum Skills Taskforce Report, which highlights the growing importance of commercialisation capability across the sector.
This investment will create a coherent, nationally accessible programme that supports researchers across career stages. It will provide sector specific training, placements and early-stage capability building activities that help individuals understand pathways to application and equip them to engage confidently with industry and user communities.
While the Centre will be hosted by a lead organisation or consortium, it is expected to operate primarily in service of the wider UK quantum community. Activities should be designed to deliver clear national benefit and be accessible beyond the host organisation, while recognising that staff and researchers at the host organisation(s) may also participate on an open and equitable basis.
By connecting and complementing existing investments, the centre will help build a more inclusive, skilled and innovation-ready workforce capable of supporting the growth of the UK quantum sector.
The objectives of this funding are to:
- support the growth and sustainability of the UK quantum workforce by developing individuals with the commercial and entrepreneurial skills needed to contribute to a thriving quantum economy
- support the creation of new spinout companies and the progression of research toward IP protection, licensing, and commercial exploitation in partnership with industry
- address skills gaps and differing levels of provision across the quantum ecosystem supporting the coordinated national approach recommended in the UK Quantum Skills Taskforce Report
- develop the capability of researchers to recognise and explore industry-relevant opportunities, generating a strong pipeline of early-stage quantum ideas that can progress through appropriate routes beyond the Centre
- support researchers to identify when and how to work with industry and end-users and how to protect, license and exploit quantum IP, ensuring innovations progress to real world commercial use
- create a nationally connected ecosystem for commercialisation skills development, aligning existing investments, industry, investors and innovation organisations around a coherent skills programme
- foster shared understanding between academia and industry, including early translation thinking and longer-term collaborative relationships, supported by bi-directional movement of people across the academic industry interface
- enable challenge led co-creation with partners to surface industry relevant needs and shape early-stage ideas that complement national priorities and strengthen the UK’s quantum innovation pipeline
Scope
Over the past decade, the UK National Quantum Technology Programme (NQTP) has had a significant impact on the UK’s quantum technologies landscape through a range of investments.
These include the establishment of a national network of quantum technology hubs, centres for doctoral training and initiatives that enable businesses to explore and drive commercial opportunities in quantum technologies. Together, these efforts have built strong scientific foundations and a growing national capability.
The sector is now moving into a phase where real-world deployment is increasingly important. Technical challenges remain, but a major barrier is the need for people who can guide technologies from research to application.
The UK requires a workforce that understands commercial pathways, user needs, regulation and adoption environments. Strengthening these skills is essential if quantum technologies are to deliver broad economic and societal value. A critical part of this capability is equipping researchers not only to understand commercial pathways, but to generate, protect and progress intellectual property, form early stage ventures, and engage effectively with investors and commercial partners.
These skills are intended to enable and support a range of commercial outcomes, including spinout formation, IP protection, and licensing or collaboration agreements, where market led opportunities arise. Such outcomes are essential for building scalable businesses and supporting sustainable growth in the UK quantum technologies sector.
The UK Centre for Quantum Commercialisation will address this need through equipping researchers with the skills needed to accelerate the real-world adoption of quantum technologies. This includes expertise in commercialisation pathways, entrepreneurial thinking, innovation strategy, and responsible research and innovation.
The centre will work closely with industry, investors, policymakers, and other external stakeholders to ensure training and support align with real-world needs.
The centre will act as a national focal point for commercialisation skills development. It will complement existing NQTP investments and help create a coherent, connected offer across the UK. Through this, the centre will contribute to building a quantum enabled economy and a research community that is confident in moving ideas from the lab into use.
Expectations
The centre is not intended to deliver its own substantive programme of subject‑led research. Its primary role is to support and enable the wider UK quantum community through skills development, training and partnerships that help progress research toward application, licensing, spin‑out creation and commercial adoption
Over the lifetime of the award the centre should:
- articulate and lead a national vision for quantum commercialisation skills, shaping how the UK develops the people and capabilities needed to support quantum technologies on their path to deployment
- provide national leadership in commercialisation skills development, working collaboratively with existing investments to strengthen the national quantum skills landscape rather than duplicate existing provision
- help position the UK as a global leader in quantum innovation readiness by developing researchers able to engage industry, investors and users with well-developed, industry relevant opportunities
- enable early translation and industry uptake of quantum technologies by embedding commercial, industry relevant and entrepreneurial thinking across the research and innovation community
- support researchers in generating, protecting and progressing intellectual property, including recognising when spinout formation, licensing or commercial partnership working is appropriate, and equipping them with the skills to take these pathways effectively
- generate new industry relevant opportunities and early-stage ideas through challenge led, co-created activities that align with national priorities and emerging sector needs
- develop and deliver a training programme that builds commercialisation and entrepreneurial skills for researchers across career stages
- actively promote inclusivity, accessibility and equity across all programmes to ensure the UK’s full quantum talent pool can benefit from this investment, contributing to a healthy and diverse skills pipeline
- attract additional investment and partnership from industry, or other partners building long term sustainability beyond the lifetime of the award
- embed continuous learning, evaluation and responsive planning to ensure the centre remains agile and able to adapt to evolving skills needs and sector developments
Supporting skills and talent
Delivering the centre’s aims and vision will require a diverse range of skills, expertise, experiences and talents. We encourage you to consider the full range of expertise, experience and talent required as part of your wider team in order to succeed. We welcome all level of experience and expertise to apply as part of the eligible research organisation.
We encourage you to follow the principles of the Concordat to Support the Career Development of Researchers and the Technician Commitment.
Structure of the centre
We are not being prescriptive with regards to the structure of the centre but suggest sensible aspects will include:
- a single institution or if appropriate multi-institutional centre based around a ‘lead’ research organisation
- a centre co-director for centre strategy and operations with a proven track record of leadership and managing large investments. While only one project lead can be included on the UKRI Funding Service, UKRI welcomes applications that reflect flexible and joint leadership models
- a centre co-director for commercialisation and entrepreneurial skills with substantial experience in commercialisation and entrepreneurial practice, who also has a strong track record in designing and delivering skills development activities relevant to translation and innovation
- a wider leadership team with complementary expertise across skills development, EDI, translational pathways, partnership building and strategic stakeholder engagement across academia, industry and public-sector. This leadership team should include a hub manager and wider administrative support as required to ensure efficient running of the centre
- appropriate advisory and governance structures including an independent advisory board
Key activities of the centre
The centre’s package of activities should be open to researchers across the UK to develop their commercialisation skills and should incorporate the following:
Exchange of people and skills across the academic–industry interface
The centre should enable meaningful two-way movement of people between academia and external organisations. This may include placements, and other mechanisms that allow researchers to gain first-hand commercial insight, and industry or public-sector professionals to engage with emerging quantum research. These activities should build enduring relationships and shared learning and improve early stage translational awareness across the national quantum community.
The salaries of staff employed by industry or other noneligible organisations cannot be funded through this grant, including during placements into academia. The centre must not provide direct financial support or selective advantage to individual enterprises.
Early-stage research accelerator
The centre should deliver an early-stage research accelerator fund that supports researchers and research teams to explore the potential application pathways for their work.
Drawing on approaches used in programmes such as ICURe Explore, the programme should guide participants through activities such as engaging with potential users and stakeholders, exploring unmet needs, testing key assumptions about use cases, and assessing the broader environment in which their research might create impact commercially.
To enhance learning and build confidence across career stages, the centre should incorporate structured buddying, coaching and mentoring arrangements throughout the accelerator programme. These arrangements should provide tailored support, help participants navigate the commercialisation journey, enable reflective learning, and foster the development of entrepreneurial skills and commercial awareness.
Following these engagement activities the programme should conclude with an opportunity for researchers to present their findings to a panel of experts for advice on next steps for commercialisation pathways best suited for their project, which can include carrying out further public or private sponsored research, exploring licensing opportunities, or seeking public or private funding for spin-out creation.
Through this programme academics will have the opportunity to explore the commercial potential of their research and develop the entrepreneurial skills and knowledge to take the next steps in securing onward investment.
Opportunity discovery and ideation
The centre should deliver an opportunity discovery and ideation fund to support activities that build researchers’ skills and confidence in identifying new industry or national priority driven challenges and in surfacing early opportunities for application within the UK quantum research landscape.
The centre should work with partners across the private and public sectors to design and deliver collaborative activities that bring together researchers, industry and end-users to explore emerging needs and stimulate new ideas that could be developed through this fund.
These activities may take a range of formats such as themed workshops, sandpits, facilitated challenge explorations or early market discovery exercises, and should promote co-creation, skills development and creative thinking around future opportunities.
Mentoring or expert advice may be included to help participants reflect on insights generated and consider how promising ideas might progress into further exploration or development.
Tailored courses and resources
The UK Quantum Skills Taskforce Report highlights the importance of complementary training, such as entrepreneurship and commercial awareness, in strengthening the quantum talent pipeline, noting the particular benefits of this approach for CDT cohorts. The centre should extend these benefits across the wider quantum research community by offering a portfolio of tailored courses that are freely accessible to researchers and professionals at different career stages.
The training offer should develop capability in commercialisation and entrepreneurial thinking, support researchers in understanding innovation practices, knowledge of intellectual property protection, and build awareness of relevant regulatory, compliance and export control considerations.
You have flexibility in how this training is structured and delivered, which may include a mix of short courses, modular learning, workshops or other appropriate formats.
Training and resources should embed principles of responsible research and innovation, covering areas such as trusted research, equality, diversity and inclusion and environmental sustainability.
Over time, the centre’s training portfolio is expected to evolve into a sustainable resource that supports the sector beyond the lifetime of the award.
Leadership
The centre must demonstrate strong, inclusive and strategic leadership that provides clear direction for the programme and ensures coherence across its activities.
Leadership should bring together complementary expertise spanning academic, professional, entrepreneurial and investor facing domains, enabling the centre to guide the development of commercialisation skills across the quantum research community and maintain effective engagement with partners and stakeholders.
Studentships
We are not providing student stipends or fees funding through this funding opportunity.
Stakeholder collaboration
Due to the nature of the centre, significant collaboration and leverage (cash or in-kind) will be expected from project partners (for example, business, public sector, third sector) over the lifetime of the investment. Such collaboration may include hosting researchers within partner organisations, contributing specialist expertise, supporting training delivery, or participating in ideation, challenge led activities and other co creation processes.
The centre’s leadership team should collectively demonstrate a strong track record of engaging with external partners, building collaborative relationships and working across the academic–industry interface. While we expect meaningful project partners to be identified at the application stage, the Centre should also actively expand its network throughout the lifetime of the award, forming new partnerships in response to emerging needs and opportunities.
Collaboration should be built on a mutually beneficial, two-way relationship, supported by clear expectations and shared objectives. This may include, where appropriate:
- secondments and placements between academia and industry
- contributions of expertise, facilities or mentoring
- participation in challenge-led ideation and sandpit style activities
- involvement in the development and delivery of training and capability building programmes
- support for the early exploration of industry relevant opportunities
You should set out clear plans for engaging with both existing and new collaborators throughout the lifetime of the centre. These plans should describe how partnership working will be enabled, how partners will contribute to different elements of the programme, and how the centre will ensure consistency, transparency and inclusivity in engaging stakeholders.
Given the national remit of the centre, bidders should also demonstrate how they will engage and collaborate with stakeholders across all parts of the UK, ensuring that the centre’s activities, opportunities and benefits are available broadly and contribute to a thriving national quantum ecosystem.
Governance and subsidy control
This competition has been designed to provide funding that is not classed by EPSRC as a subsidy.
You should seek independent legal advice on what this means for you, before applying.
Further information about the Subsidy Control Act 2022 requirements can be found within the Subsidy Control Act 2022 (legislation.gov.uk).
It is the responsibility of the lead organisation to make sure all collaborators and activity funded through the centre remain compliant with the ‘No Subsidy’ status they are awarded. This should be accounted for in the governance of the centre and the delivery of any activities and funding by the centre.
It is important to note that it is the activity that an organisation is engaged in as part of the project and not its intentions, that define whether any support provided could be considered a subsidy.
EU State aid rules now only apply in limited circumstances. See the Windsor Framework to check if these rules apply to your organisation.
In addition to subsidy control compliance, the centre must have governance arrangements that:
- include a robust advisory structure that will bring the expertise needed to support the centre’s strategic vision and delivery. We would expect this to include commercial, translational and sector relevant expertise to offer strategic challenge, scrutiny and assurance. The final advisory structure will be subject to EPSRC approval
- provide clear oversight of all training, capability building and exploratory activities delivered through the centre
- ensure transparent, fair and robust processes for allocating and monitoring any devolved funding
- avoid duplication of funding with other UKRI investments, for example, ensuring CDT students are not funded for training already covered by their CDT
- embed Trusted Research and Innovation (TR&I) principles in due diligence, partnership working and decisions relating to funding or collaboration
- support consistent and inclusive national engagement with partners across academia, industry, investors and the public sector
- incorporate independent oversight, including an advisory board, to provide scrutiny, assurance and strategic challenge
- enable continuous learning, evaluation and adaptation so the centre can respond to emerging needs in the quantum skills landscape
Equality, diversity and inclusion (EDI)
As a leader in the community, the centre will be expected to embed EDI in all their activities throughout the lifetime of the investment.
If funded, this will include identifying the specific EDI challenges and barriers that could impact engagement with the centre’s activities and the wider commercialisation landscape and developing a strategy to address these, with reference to our published expectations for EDI.
The centre must ensure that they request appropriate resources to develop and deliver their EDI strategy effectively. This must include at least one costed staff post with responsibility for EDI (the centre EDI lead).
The centre should include information on EDI resources (including the mandatory costed staff post for the EDI lead and any other resources, in the justification of resources document.
Responsible innovation and trusted research
We are fully committed to developing and promoting responsible innovation and trusted research.
Research has the ability to not only produce understanding, knowledge and value, but also unintended consequences, questions, ethical dilemmas and, at times, unexpected social transformations.
We recognise that we have a duty of care to:
- promote approaches to responsible innovation that will initiate ongoing reflection about the potential ethical and societal implications of the research that we sponsor
- encourage our research community to do likewise
The centre will be required to embed principles of responsible innovation and those of trusted research throughout their activities and will be expected to engage with the relevant regulatory bodies where concerns may arise under the National Security and Investment Act.
Sustainability
UKRI’s environmental sustainability strategy lays out our ambition to actively lead environmental sustainability across our sectors. This includes a vision to ensure that all major investment and funding decisions we make are directly informed by environmental sustainability, recognising environmental benefits as well as potential for environmental harm.
Environmental sustainability is a broad term but may include consideration of such broad areas as:
- reducing carbon emissions
- protecting and enhancing the natural environment and biodiversity
- waste or pollution elimination
- resource efficiency and a circular economy
We expect the centre to embed careful consideration of environmental sustainability throughout its operations.
Duration
The duration of this award is four years
Projects must start on 1 December 2026.
Funding available
Your project can be up to £11.3 million.
As a non-FEC grant, we will fund 100% of eligible costs listed in the funding opportunity. Estates and indirect costs will not be funded.
What we will fund
Costs that may be requested include:
Leadership staff salaries
The project lead and other leadership team members can request funds to cover their salary costs for the time spent on setting up and leading the centre.
Administrative support
A sufficient level of administrative support should be requested for the management team to help in the coordination and management of the centre to ensure smooth running of the centre’s activities.
Costs associated with delivering key activities of the centre
This includes, where justified, costs for salaries during placements or other mechanisms facilitating two-way movement of people, engagement with the early-stage research accelerator and opportunity discover and ideation activities.
The salaries of staff employed by industry or other non-eligible organisations cannot be funded through this grant, including during placements into academia. The centre must not provide direct financial support or selective advantage to individual enterprises.
Travel and subsistence costs to enable engagement with any of the centres activities and training where justified.
Other costs associated with the delivery of the centre’s activities may be requested, including but not limited to:
- costs for external facilitators, mentors or coaches
- costs for subcontracting the delivery of specific, targeted elements of training or capability building activities to external specialists, where doing so is clearly justified as necessary to secure expertise that cannot be provided in house
- software, platforms and tools required for activity and training delivery
- costs for events and engagement activities
- costs for developing and maintaining a website
We expect partner contributions to support these mechanisms, which may include salary contributions or time of individuals undertaking placements or contributing specialist expertise such as mentoring or commercial insight.
Organisation of activities
You are encouraged to think creatively about the range of activities that could support the delivery of the centre’s training and capability building programme.
These may include, but are not limited to:
- developing researchers’ understanding of commercialisation pathways, such as through IP awareness workshops, mentoring from knowledge exchange or technology transfer professionals, and opportunities for placements
- building researchers’ skills in exploring the application potential of their work, including early stage feasibility exploration, opportunity identification, and market awareness training
- training in responsible innovation, including themes such as trusted research, EDI, environmental sustainability, public engagement and the AREA framework, tailored to the commercialisation context
- small scale internal funding to support researcher led learning activities, such as testing assumptions, exploring adoption barriers, or undertaking discovery led skill building exercises
- exposure to investment landscapes, including researcher focused sessions on communicating value propositions or understanding investor perspectives
- access to regulatory and standards expertise, delivered through training, briefings or workshops to build awareness of regulatory considerations relevant to quantum deployment
Flexible funding
This award will be issued as a non FEC grant, with EPSRC funding 100% of the eligible costs; estates and indirect costs are not allowable. All flexible funding delivered via the centre must be awarded on the same non FEC basis.
The flexible fund should support the centre’s key activities, including early stage accelerator, opportunity discover and ideation and placements or other structured knowledge exchange mechanisms. It should help researchers build capability, test assumptions and explore emerging needs and potential application pathways.
Flexible funds can be allocated to researchers at any career stage at any organisation currently eligible for EPSRC funding. You will need to think carefully about how any budget for external distribution will be commissioned through a robust process and how you will ensure processes for the allocation of funds are fair and transparent within the framework of the UKRI Principles of Assessment and Decision making. In this case you will need to think carefully about how this budget will be managed.
Please note that any grants commissioned by the centre using the flexible funds will be restricted to UKRI current research organisation eligibility but will not be bound by standard EPSRC investigator eligibility criterion. This means that PhD students and research and innovate associates hosted at an eligible research organisation would be eligible for funding.
It is the project lead’s responsibility to ensure ongoing governance and correct usage and accountability of the funds as outlined in the Governance and subsidy control section of this funding opportunity.
We would expect you to provide examples of the types of activities that may be supported through the flexible fund.
Challenges and themes to be addressed through the flexible fund are expected to be defined by the centre and should be co created and collaborative in nature, aligned with the centre’s early stage exploration, ideation and capability building remit.
The grants funded by the flexible fund are expected to engage with the wider programme of activity and report their progress and outcomes to the centre. These outcomes should be reported as part of the wider research centre programme reporting.
Flexible funds may not be used for student stipends or fees.
These funds must be reported on the final expenditure statement (FES) as awarded on the offer letter and a breakdown of the expenditure must be submitted along with the FES. Flexible funds are funded at 100% by UK Research and Innovation (UKRI). Estates and indirect costs will not be funded.
What we will not fund
This funding opportunity is not a standard training grant. The centre may not fund studentships or carry out longer term research itself. This funding opportunity will not fund:
- tuition fees
- stipends
- research training support grant (RTSG)
- equipment over £25,000 is not available through this funding opportunity
- the filing of intellectual property, for example, patent, trademark or registered design
- public engagement activities
Supporting skills and talent
Taking research outputs toward real world commercialisation outcomes requires a diversity of skills, expertise, experiences and talents. We encourage you to consider the full range of expertise, experience and talent required as part of your wider team in order to succeed. We welcome all levels of experience and expertise to apply as part of the eligible research organisation.
We encourage you to follow the principles of the Concordat to Support the Career Development of Researchers and the Technician Commitment.
Trusted Research and Innovation (TR&I)
UKRI is committed in ensuring that effective international collaboration in research and innovation takes place with integrity and within strong ethical frameworks. Trusted Research and Innovation (TR&I) is a UKRI work programme designed to help protect all those working in our thriving and collaborative international sector by enabling partnerships to be as open as possible, and as secure as necessary. Our TR&I Principles set out UKRI’s expectations of organisations funded by UKRI in relation to due diligence for international collaboration.
As such, applicants for UKRI funding may be asked to demonstrate how their proposed projects will comply with our approach and expectation towards TR&I, identifying potential risks and the relevant controls you will put in place to help proportionately reduce these risks.
See further guidance and information about TR&I, including where applicants can find additional support.
