BBSRC Industrial Partnership Awards (IPA) — Always Open
Supports United Kingdom industry-academia teams through partnership awards for precommercial innovation experiments.
The BBSRC Industrial Partnership Awards (IPA) programme is a co-funding designation within the BBSRC Responsive Mode (applicant-led) scheme, not a standalone call with its own submission window. Academic teams apply through the standard BBSRC Standard Research Grant or New Investigator Award routes on the UKRI Funding Service, designating their application as an IPA by including a qualifying industry partner. Since BBSRC's always-open Responsive Mode reopened on 1 May 2026, IPA applications can be submitted on a continuous, rolling basis with no fixed deadlines.
The IPA designation requires a minimum 10% cash contribution from the industry partner, calculated against the outstanding project cost balance after BBSRC and institutional contributions. In-kind contributions are welcome but do not count toward the 10% cash threshold. BBSRC funds 80% of full economic cost; the host institution covers 20%; and the industry cash sits on top of those contributions. Awards follow the Standard Research Grant ceiling of up to £2,000,000 fEC over up to five years. Industry partners must be UK-registered or have UK research and development or manufacturing operations; overseas partners require written justification for inclusion.
IPA is designed to encourage genuine collaboration between academic research groups and industry rather than passive industry sponsorship — the industrial partner must be substantively engaged in defining or using the research. The scheme is appropriate for academic groups in biosciences, agriculture, food technology, industrial biotechnology, or manufacturing who have an industry collaborator willing to commit cash. The IPA scheme contact is industry.collaboration@bbsrc.ukri.org. Applications are processed alongside standard Responsive Mode applications and reviewed under the same peer-review process.
Academic-led bioscience research projects across the full BBSRC remit conducted in substantive partnership with an industry co-funder contributing at least 10% cash.
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