Key Features
Organisations can apply for a share up to £3 million inclusive of VAT, to develop and scale Engineering Biology platforms, products and services.
Programme: Innovate UK
Award: Share of up to £3 million
Opens: 1st Sep 2026
Closes: 14th Oct 2026
Innovate UK will invest up to £3 million from the UKRI Engineering Biology Programme in this Contracts for Innovation competition.
The aim of this competition is to enable innovative engineering biology focussed organisations to accelerate the development and commercialisation of products that can address the societal challenges defined by Defra and the FSA.
Projects must focus on one of the following specific themes:
To be eligible for this competition projects must have total costs of no more than £200,000 with projects lasting up to 9 months. Projects must start on 1st January 2027 and end by 30th September 2027.
Applicant: To lead a project, you must be a UK based organisation of any size, working alone or with subcontracted skills and expertise of others from business, research organisation, research and technology organisations or third sector organisations. Contracts will be awarded to single legal entities only.
Innovate UK are not funding the following projects:
Innovate UK have allocated up to £3 million to fund innovation projects in this phase 1 feasibility study research and development competition. Funding will be in the form of a contract up to £200,000.
Value Added Tax (VAT)
You must select whether you are VAT registered before entering your eligible project costs.
VAT is the responsibility of the invoicing business. We will not provide any further advice and suggest you seek independent advice from HMRC.
VAT registered
If you select you are VAT registered, you must enter your eligible project costs exclusive of VAT. As part of the application process VAT will be automatically calculated and added to your project cost total. Your total eligible project costs inclusive of VAT must not exceed £200,000.
Not VAT registered
If you select you are not VAT registered, you must enter your eligible project costs exclusive of VAT and no VAT will be added. You will not be able to increase total project costs to cover VAT later should you become VAT registered. Your total project costs must not exceed £200,000.
Research and development (R&D)
Your application must have at least 50% of the contract value attributed directly and exclusively to R&D services, including solution exploration and design. R&D can also include prototyping and field-testing the product or service. This lets you incorporate the results of your exploration and design and demonstrate that you can produce in quantity to acceptable quality standards.
R&D does not include:
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