UKDI Themed Competitions

Rapid Transfusion Diagnostics: Optimising Safety on Deployed Operations

Supports innovative point-of-care blood testing devices for military medical operations in deployed settings.

⚠ This may reflect a past cycle — verify the current call on the funder's site.

The Rapid Transfusion Diagnostics competition is a UK Defence Innovation programme run on behalf of the Defence Science and Technology Laboratory (Dstl) and Defence Medical Services (DMS), seeking technology solutions that reduce the logistical burden of collecting, testing, and administering blood in deployed military settings. The core challenge is to develop an innovative, logistically light point-of-care blood testing device capable of determining ABO blood group and detecting specific blood-borne viruses — enabling safer transfusion practice in austere, resource-constrained operational environments where laboratory infrastructure is unavailable. Total funding is £3 million (excluding VAT), with 4 to 6 proposals expected to be awarded in the region of £500,000 to £700,000 each. The submission deadline was 12:00 midday BST on 2 June 2026, with expected feedback release on 6 August 2026 and an estimated contract start of mid-September 2026.

The competition is open to UK-based and internationally registered innovators with a UK business presence, spanning academia, SMEs, individuals, and large companies. Full eligibility criteria are detailed in the competition document (PDF) linked from the gov.uk competition page. Applications are submitted via the UKDI Online Submission Service. A launch webinar was held on 19 March 2026, with Q&A published on 1 April 2026. Subsequent updates addressed BBV testing clarifications (15 April 2026), submission advice (23 April 2026), and timeline revisions (7 May 2026). The competition was first published on 10 March 2026.

Proposals must address at least one facet of the two-part challenge — ABO blood grouping or blood-borne virus detection — and preferably both within a single integrated device. Evaluators will assess logistical footprint, robustness in austere conditions, speed and accuracy of results, and technical readiness. Teams working at the intersection of microfluidics, lateral-flow or molecular diagnostics, and portable detection instrumentation are the primary target applicant group. The challenge specifically values solutions that are lighter and simpler than existing field blood testing options, making size, weight, and power (SWaP) metrics a critical dimension of any competitive proposal.