Funding opportunities and competitions
A range of funding opportunities and competitions are available through Invest NI, Innovate UK, the Small Business Research Initiative and Horizon 2020.
Smart Belfast
Augment the City XR funding competition
£500K funding to support local SMEs to innovate in immersive technologies to enhance the visitor experience in Belfast. Find out more >>
Invest NI
Invest NI Innovation Vouchers
What could a £5,000 Innovation Voucher do for your business? An Innovation Voucher provides funding to small and medium sized businesses to work with an expert Knowledge Provider from a university, college or other public sector research body bringing new knowledge to help businesses innovate, develop and grow. Find out more >>
Innovation, research and development grants
Invest NI can offer funding support to eligible businesses looking to plan or undertake R&D projects. The funding can help you to plan, develop and test your ideas; build and test a prototype; create and refine your concept design; and secure intellectual property. Find out more >>
Innovate UK and UKRI funding
View the full list of funding opportunities on the Innovate UK and UKRI websites.
£98m Healthy Ageing Challenge
As part of the UK government’s Industrial Strategy Challenge Fund, the Healthy Ageing Challenge asks industry and researchers to develop products and services to support an ageing society. Up to £98 million will be invested in research and innovation that supports people as they age. Over the coming years, there will be a series of opportunities for UK-based businesses and researchers. Find out more >>
SBRI funding competitions
The Small Business Research Initiative supports a range of competitions with public sector organisations and departments.
Horizon 2020 funding
There are also opportunities for funding through the Horizon 2020 programme which focuses on European projects in research and innovation.
More information
Find out more about funding opportunities on the Innovate UK website, Invest NI website and NI Business Info website.
If your business is located within the Belfast City Council area, you can also receive support and advice from the council's Economic Development Team at belfastcity.gov.uk/business.
£25m Innovate UK Smart Grants
Innovate UK, as part of UK Research and Innovation, is investing up to £25 million in the best game-changing or disruptive R&D innovations which have significant potential to impact on the UK economy.
All proposals must be business focused, rather than pure research. Applications can come from any area of technology (including arts, design, media or creative industries), science or engineering and be applied to any part of the economy.
Whilst they welcome projects that overlap with the Grand Challenge areas of the UK Industrial Strategy - artificial intelligence and data, ageing society, clean growth and future of mobility - they are also keen to support projects that are entirely outside of these.
Funding
- Duration between 6 and 18 months: total eligible project costs between £25,000 and £500,000 (single company or collaboration).
- Duration between 19 and 36 months: total eligible project costs between £25,000 and £2 million (collaboration only).
Find out more
Visit the Innovate UK website to find out more.
Hubs of Innovation - call for follower cities
Belfast is part of an ambitious consortium of eight European cities which are leading on a €7.9 million Horizon 2020 funded HUB-IN project to create a Europe-wide ecosystem of innovation and entrepreneurship.
The project aims to promote the urban transformation and heritage-led regeneration of historic urban areas through innovation and entrepreneurship, while preserving their unique cultural, social and environmental identities and values.
Eight city pilots are currently working on their selected historic area and transforming it into a Hub of Innovation and Entrepreneurship by co-developing new business models and innovative solutions that will bring together sustainability and cultural heritage. The Belfast HUB-IN is focused on the Maritime Mile in the city's Titanic Quarter.
Call for follower cities
HUB-IN intends to select at least 20 additional historic urban areas to follow the project and potentially develop their own hubs of innovation. The collaboration between the eight pilot cities and follower cities will develop into the HUB-IN Alliance, to create a ‘network of interest’ and continue the work of HUB-IN by supporting and connecting Hubs of Innovation across Europe into the future.
The follower cities will have access to a range of knowledge and insights, as well as exclusive content and support for their own regeneration processes.
More information
To find out more and express your interest in becoming a follower city, visit www.hubin-project.eu/alliance/
£98m Healthy Ageing Challenge
As part of the UK government’s Industrial Strategy Challenge Fund, the Healthy Ageing Challenge asks industry and researchers to develop products and services to support an ageing society.
The number of people over 75 in the UK today is one in 12. By 2040, it will rise to one in seven. We're also living for longer and a third of children born now are expected to live to 100.
This presents a challenge to health services, but it is also an opportunity for businesses and researchers who can help people to stay active and productive as they age.
The Healthy Ageing Challenge will support UK government’s mission to ensure people can enjoy at least five extra healthy, independent years of life by 2035, and will support people to stay in their homes for longer, tackle loneliness, and increase independence and wellbeing.
Funded projects will need to show how they will tackle one or more of the following challenges of older life:
- Sustaining physical activity
- Maintaining health at work
- Design for age-friendly homes
- Creating healthy, active places
- Supporting social connections
- Living well with cognitive impairment
- Managing common complaints of ageing.
Funding
Up to £98 million will be invested in research and innovation that supports people as they age.
Over the coming years, there will be a series of opportunities for UK-based businesses and researchers. This includes:
Healthy Ageing Catalyst 2020
This funding is aimed at researchers with early-stage innovative ideas that align with the Healthy Ageing Challenge. Awards will provide £50,000 at 80% fEC and must be led by an academic who is based at an eligible UK research organisation. Awards can support staff time and resources needed to meet a key milestone that demonstrates the potential of the innovation. Closing date for outline stage is 13 February 2020. Find out more >>
Trailblazers (£40m)
This programme focuses on supporting the development of near to market propositions with potential to be adopted at scale. It will stimulate new ideas from a wide range of businesses and social enterprises to develop and deliver products, services and business models at a large scale to support people as they age.
Investment Accelerator (£29m)
This programme will catalyse private investment in business-led research and development, to grow and take to market innovations for healthy ageing that have clear potential to be adopted at scale. These will focus on product and service innovations, not larger-scale infrastructure.
A total of £29 million in government grants, together with matched funding from private investors, will be available over the next four years for projects up to £1.5 million in eligible costs.
Social, Behavioural and Design Research Programme
This programme will deliver evidence on key challenges facing the older population and ways in which support and care can be delivered effectively. Insights from the latest social and behavioural sciences and cutting-edge design research will feed into other activities in the healthy ageing challenge, enhance the competitive position of UK-based companies, and inform a wider group of stakeholders.
Developing the pipeline: Early stage support
UKRI will provide financial support to academic researchers and small, medium, enterprises working together to develop new products and services. This is early stage innovation activity and it will attract match funding from existing funding streams that focus on digital healthcare and older adults.
A total of up to £12 million will be available through a range of opportunities which will be announced starting in 2020 and run for up to four years.
Community of Practice
This programme will facilitate collaboration across the investment portfolio to maximise impact, facilitate international collaboration, support knowledge exchange and foster a pipeline of early stage innovations.
Find out more
Visit the UK Research and Innovation website to find out more and keep up to date with funding opportunities.
Open Data Fund - £30,000 funding available
The Department of Finance has opened a £30,000 Innovation and Outreach Fund to encourage the use of open data.
Awards of between £300 and up to £5,000 are available to fund the development of apps or other interactive visualisations that make innovative use of data on the Open Data NI portal.
Organisations and individuals hosting engagement activities including hackathons, workshops, seminars or events that will raise awareness of open data will also be eligible to apply to the fund.
Opening up public sector data has the potential to provide commercial opportunities and drive economic growth and innovation. This fund will encourage creative re-use of the growing number of public sector datasets available on the Open Data NI Portal and help deliver on the ambitious targets set out in the Open Data Strategy.
More information
Further information about the Innovation and Outreach Fund can be found at www.finance-ni.gov.uk/niopendatafund.
The deadline to apply is Friday 7 February 2020.
Successful applications will be notified on 24 February 2020. Funded activities and projects need to be completed by 30 June 2020.
£40m Healthy Ageing Funding: Information Session - 4 October
A £40m Healthy Ageing Trailblazers funding competition is now open for applications.
As part of the UK government’s Industrial Strategy Challenge Fund, the Healthy Ageing Challenge asks industry and researchers to develop products and services to support an ageing society.
It will support the UK government’s mission to ensure people can enjoy at least five extra healthy, independent years of life by 2035, and will support people to stay in their homes for longer, tackle loneliness, and increase independence and wellbeing.
Competition
The competition fund aims to encourage businesses and public sector led collaborations, including social enterprises, to develop and demonstrate how products, services and business models - which support people as they age - can be adopted at scale.
Stage one - £100,000 for research and business plan development
Stage two - £36m to develop and implement products, services or business models, with individual eligible project costs of up to £6 million.
Information Session
4 October 2019, Belfast City Hall, 1pm - 4.30pm
The Knowledge Transfer Network is holding an information session, facilitated by Belfast City Council, at Belfast City Hall on 4 October 2019 from 1pm - 4.30pm.
Hear from the Healthy Ageing Challenge leads at UK Research and Innovation (UKRI) which is investing up to £1.5 million in stage one of this two-stage competition.
Background information
The number of people over 75 in the UK today is one in 12. By 2040, it will rise to one in seven. We're also living for longer and a third of children born now are expected to live to 100.
This presents a challenge to health services, but it is also an opportunity for businesses and researchers who can help people to stay active and productive as they age.
Funded projects will need to show how they will tackle one or more of the following challenges of older life:
- Sustaining physical activity
- Maintaining health at work
- Design for age-friendly homes
- Creating healthy, active places
- Supporting social connections
- Living well with cognitive impairment
- Managing common complaints of ageing.
Find out more
Visit the UK Research and Innovation website to find out more and keep up to date with funding opportunities.
£90K space data analytics funding
£90K of funding is available through a Small Business Research Initiative competition for new space data analytics projects.
The Department of Health (DoH) Northern Ireland funding is intended for projects that can triangulate prescription (health) data and air quality / pollution data with location data to supply new information through an innovative and engaging mechanism.
This new data should enable local citizens and the public authorities to be better informed about air quality and empower them to make better decisions when managing life, care and well-being in a sustainable and healthy way.
The projects should focus on delivering:
- citizen-based utility to enable healthier choices
- wider public health planning
- clinical management of patients where poor air quality could lead to an exacerbation
- understanding exposure to pollutants and effects at a local level
- promoting urban healthy living and cleaner environments
- better city and transport planning.
Funding
This competition is funded through the Small Business Research Initiative (SBRI) scheme and is open to all providers that can demonstrate a route to market for their solution.
It is particularly suited to emerging, small and medium-sized business, as the contracts are of relatively small value and operate on short timescales.
Phase one
Total funding of up to £90,000 for phase one is available to cover all challenges within the SBRI brief. Phase one contracts:
- are intended to design and develop prototypes or demonstration units
- will be awarded to a potential of three contractors for a maximum period of four months and maximum funding of £30,000 (excluding VAT) per project
- must be completed four months following the commencement of contracts.
Phase two
In a potential phase two project, clinical and field trials of technology may be required. Suppliers for phase two projects will be selected by a competitive process between existing phase one suppliers.
Phase three
There may be an option for phase three contracts, which are intended for pre-commercial testing to support continued development of the prototype.
Closing date
This opportunity closes on Friday 30 August 2019 at 3pm.
Find out more
Visit the NI Business Info website and eTendersNI website to view the tender documents and find out more.
£19m electrification project funding
Businesses can apply for a share of £19 million of Innovate UK funding to develop supply chain processes that will help to deliver electrification in the UK.
The UK will need to switch to electrification across many sectors, from automotive to energy distribution, in order to meet its carbon reduction targets.
This change also represents a significant global opportunity for UK businesses making the power electronics, machines and drivers that will be required.
There is up to £19 million from the Industrial Strategy Challenge Fund to invest in projects that support the creation, development and scale-up of supply chains in power electronics, machines and drivers.
Projects should address commercial opportunities in one or more of these sectors:
- aerospace
- automotive
- energy generation and distribution
- industrial (production equipment)
- marine
- off highway (construction, agricultural equipment)
- rail.
Funding
The competition has two strands:
- Larger projects with total costs between £1 million and £3 million
- Smaller projects with total costs between £250,000 and £1 million.
Closing date
This competition closes on 25 September 2019 at 12 noon.
Find out more
Visit the Innovate UK website to find out more.
A briefing event will be held in Belfast on 8 August 2019 at the NIACE Centre (Northern Ireland Advanced Composites and Engineering Centre).
£55m Energy Project Funding
A number of Innovate UK funding opportunities are available for energy projects.
1. Energy Catalyst Round 7 - £22m
Energy Catalyst is focused on the needs of poor households, businesses and services in sub-Saharan Africa or South Asia. The competition will fund the development of any energy technology that helps to solve the energy trilemma (lower energy cost, lower emissions and improved security of energy supply) whilst also being targeted at people who are unable to afford or access existing solutions, or who lack the time or expertise to successfully use those solutions.
Competition opens: 17 June 2019
Competition closes: 18 September 2019
Find out more on the Innovate UK website.
2. ISCF Detailed Designs for Smart Local Energy Systems - £30m
This competition will fund world-leading smart energy system designs which focus on a specific UK location. These designs must encompass new business models and market structures that intelligently link supply, distribution, storage and demand patterns across power, heating and transport.
Competition opens: 7 May 2019
Competition closes: 7 August 2019
Find out more on the Innovate UK website.
3. PFER Innovation Accelerator - £3m
The Prospering from the Energy Revolution Innovation Accelerator will fund the development of components of an energy system. The scope of the competition, and what will be eligible, will be announced shortly.
Competition opens: July 2019
4. Prospering from the Energy Revolution Paris trip 10 - 14 November 2019
Join the UK Pavilion at the European Utilities Week exhibition and conference in Paris in November 2019. UK Research and Innovation (UKRI) is organising a funded visit to Paris targeted at organisations associated with energy systems innovations.
The visit, which is taking place from 10-14 November 2019, will be funded by UKRI through the Industrial Strategy Challenge Fund, Prospering from the Energy Revolution (PFER).
The four-day trip will include attendance at the European Utilities Week conference and exhibition with over 900 exhibitors and conference sessions taking place. They will select organisations with expertise in the following topics relevant to the PFER programme:
- power generation, supply and storage
- heating/cooling generation, supply and storage
- energy for transport
- digital integration and system optimisation
- energy efficiency.
Travel, hotels and conference registration will be organised by UKRI on behalf of the successful applicants. Register to attend the trip by the 28 June 2019.
Find out more
Visit the Innovate UK website to find out more.