Smart Grants

Smart Grants sit under Innovate UK, the UK's innovation agency within UK Research and Innovation, and they are designed for UK SME-led R&D that can produce game-changing products, services, or processes. The current record says the offer was paused in January 2025 while Innovate UK worked on tailored support, with a new pilot flagged for spring 2025 but no confirmed relaunch date in the source material. The most detailed competition in the record ran with a GBP 25 million pot, project costs from GBP 100,000 to GBP 1 million, and durations from 6 to 24 months. Projects of 6 to 18 months could be single-company or collaborative, while 19 to 24 months had to be collaborative, and the funding rate stepped with company size and project phase from as high as 70 percent down to 25 percent of eligible costs. The fit is strongest for UK-based SMEs that can anchor the bid with at least one micro, small, or medium enterprise as lead or collaborative grant-claiming partner and keep all work domestic. Because the programme is paused, the practical answer is not to chase a live round, but to wait for the redesigned offer and shape the project around the size, collaboration, and match-funding rules that already defined the last fully detailed competition.

Each grant below is a distinct funding opportunity with its own eligibility, scope, and deliverables.