Future Flight: Strategic Growth

Key Features

UK registered organisations can apply for a share of up to £3 million for the development of next steps in integrated Remotely Piloted Aircraft Systems (RPAS) usage. This funding is from Innovate UK and Department for Transport.

Programme:     Innvoate UK

Award:     Share of up to £3 million

Opens: 12th May 2025

Closes: 11th Jun 2025

! This scheme is now closed

Overview

Innovate UK, part of UK Research and Innovation, will work with Department for Transport (DfT) to invest up to £3 million in new innovation projects.

These projects will be to demonstrate progress towards commercialisation or achievement of routine Beyond Visual Line of Sight (BVLOS) operations, building on current state of the art approaches.

Scope

The aim of this competition is to accelerate the development of the UK drone sector, creating growth and meeting the objectives of Department for Transport (DfT) Future of Flight Action Plan.

Your project must demonstrate progress towards commercialisation or achievement of routine Beyond Visual Line of Sight (BVLOS) operations, building on current state of the art approaches.

Your project must deliver either:

  • tangible outcomes in new use cases previously at a demonstration phase, or scaling up of existing commercial use cases; these must have strong end user involvement

or

  • tangible developments in support of the regulatory policy concepts, or concepts of operation being developed by the Civil Aviation Authority to enable Remotely Piloted Aircraft Systems (RPAS); this can include data, testing, concepts of operation or other relevant development and you must be willing to share data and outputs with the CAA

You must include the participation of UK registered end users or operators in your project.

Your project can include flight activities where this adds benefit to your project.

We particularly welcome applications that focus on strategically important use cases, for example; medical delivery, inspection of critical infrastructure, maritime, agriculture, support to front line public services.

Your project must be developing further maturity against Future Flight Challenge Phase 3, or other industry work. It must not be a repetition of previous work already completed by yourselves or others.

You must detail clearly in your application any dependency on regulatory approvals. You must demonstrate that any required approvals are either already granted or obtainable by a clear and supported route within your project timeline.

To support industry progress and government and regulatory frameworks we ask that the key learnings from your project are shared openly.

Portfolio approach

Innovate UK want to fund a variety of projects across different technologies, use cases, regulatory areas, UK regional markets and research categories. Innovate UK call this a portfolio approach.

Specific Themes

Your project must focus on one or more of the following:

  • use cases that deliver economic and social benefit
  • regulatory areas; Electronic Conspicuity (EC), Detect and Avoid (DAA), Multiple Simultaneous Operations (MSO), Uncrewed Traffic Management (UTM) or Atypical Air environments (AAE)

Eligibility

Your project

Your project must:

  • have a grant funding request of between £250,000 and £500,000
  • last between six and seven months
  • carry out all of its project work in the UK, unless specifically stated and pre-approved by Innovate UK
  • intend to exploit the results from or in the UK
  • start on 1 September 2025
  • end by 31 March 2026

Projects must always start on the first of the month, even if this is a non-working day. You must not start your project until your Grant Offer Letter has been approved by Innovate UK. Any delays within Project Setup may mean we need to delay your project start date.

You must only include eligible project costs in your application. See our overview of eligible project costs. For specific guidance, see the eligibility section in this competition.

If your project’s duration falls outside of our eligibility criteria, or you wish for UK funded partners to carry out any project work outside of the UK, you must provide justification by email to support@iuk.ukri.org as soon as possible before the competition closes. We will decide whether to approve your request.

If you have not requested approval or your application has not been approved by us, you will be made ineligible. Your application will then not be sent for assessment.

Lead organisation

To lead a project your organisation must:

More information on the different types of organisation can be found in our Funding rules.

You can include non-UK organisations in your project, with them being either a non-funded partner or an overseas subcontractor, where justification must be provided.

Academic institutions cannot lead.

Project team

To collaborate with the lead, your organisation must be one of the following UK registered:

  • business of any size
  • academic institution
  • charity
  • not for profit
  • public sector organisation
  • research and technology organisation (RTO)

Each partner organisation must be invited into the Innovation Funding Service (IFS) by the lead to collaborate on a project. Once partners have accepted the invitation, they will be asked to login or to create an account in IFS. They are responsible for entering their own project costs and completing their Project Impact questions in the application.

To be an eligible collaboration, the lead and at least one other organisation must:

  • apply for funding when entering their costs into the application
  • include rationale for the collaboration and describe the structure in your application
  • ensure any one partner does not account for more than 70% of the total grant requested

Non-funded partners

Your project can include non-UK partners, including partners based in the EU, who bring their own funding. Non-UK partners are permitted to carry out project work from within their home countries and exploit results overseas. Their costs will count towards the total eligible project costs.

Subcontractors

Subcontractors are allowed in this competition.

Subcontractors can be from anywhere in the UK and you must select them through your usual procurement process.

You can use subcontractors from overseas but must make the case in your application as to why you cannot use subcontractors from the UK.

You must provide a detailed rationale, evidence of the potential UK contractors you approached and the reasons why they were unable to work with you. We will not accept a cheaper cost as a sufficient reason to use an overseas subcontractor.

All subcontractor costs must be justified and appropriate to the total eligible project costs.

Number of applications

A business can only lead on one application but can be included as a collaborator in one further application.

If a business is not leading any application, it can collaborate in two applications.

An academic institution, research and technology organisation (RTO), charity, not for profit or public sector organisation can collaborate in two applications.

Sanctions

This competition will not fund you, or provide any financial benefit to any individual or entities directly or indirectly involved with you, which would expose Innovate UK or any direct or indirect beneficiary of funding from Innovate UK to UK Sanctions. For example, through any procurement, commercial, business development or supply chain activity with any entity as lead, partner or subcontractor related to these countries, administrations and terrorist groups.

Use of animals in research and innovation

Innovate UK expects and supports the provision and safeguarding of welfare standards for animals used in research and innovation, according to best practice and up to date guidance.

Any projects selected for funding which involve animals will be asked to provide additional information on welfare and ethical considerations, as well as compliance with any relevant legislation as part of the project start-up process. This information will be reviewed before an award is made.

You can use a previously submitted application to apply for this competition.

Exclusions

Innovate UK are not funding projects that:

  • have no engagement with an end user or operator
  • are reliant on any regulatory approvals that are not either already granted or obtainable by a clear and supported route through the regulator within the project timeline
  • are developing advances that relate to regulatory areas which are not currently being resourced by the regulator
  • are repetitions of work already carried out within industry
  • are a development of systems or sub-systems for application to passenger aircraft
  • are developing alternative propulsion systems or fuels such as hydrogen fuel cells, hydrogen combustion or sustainable aviation fuels (SAF)
  • are developing batteries or charging systems for electric aircraft
  • focus solely on defence, space applications or High Altitude Platform Stations (HAPS)

Innovate UK cannot fund projects that are:

  • dependent on export performance, for example, giving a subsidy to a baker on the condition that it exports a certain quantity of bread to another country
  • dependent on domestic inputs usage, for example, giving a subsidy to a baker on the condition that it uses 50% UK flour in their product

Funding Costs

Up to £3 million has been allocated to fund innovation projects in this competition. Funding will be in the form of a grant.

If your organisation’s work on the project is commercial or economic, your funding request must not exceed the limits below. These limits apply even if your organisation normally acts non-economically but for the purpose of this project will be undertaking commercial or economic activity.

Choose the applicable category below for the Research, Development and Innovation Streamlined Subsidy Scheme:

Category 2. Industrial research projects

Funding available for your eligible project costs of:

  • up to 70% if you are a micro or small organisation
  • up to 60% if you are a medium sized organisation
  • up to 50% if you are a large organisation

Category 2. Experimental development projects which are nearer to market

Funding available for your eligible project costs of:

  • up to 45% if you are a micro or small organisation
  • up to 35% if you are a medium sized organisation
  • up to 25% if you are a large organisation

For more information on company sizes, please refer to the company accounts guidance.

If you are applying for an award funded under State aid Regulations, the definitions are set out in the European Commission Recommendation of 6 May 2003.

Innovate UK may revoke our decision to provide funding without notice if government commitment for this initiative is withdrawn.

Research participation

The research organisations undertaking non-economic activity as part of the project can share up to 30% of the total eligible project costs. If your consortium contains more than one research organisation undertaking non-economic activity, this maximum is shared between them. Of that 30% you can get funding for your eligible project costs of up to:

  • 100% of your eligible project costs if you are an RTO, charity, not for profit organisation, public sector organisation or research organisation
  • 80% of full economic costs (FEC) if you are a Je-S registered institution such as an academic

Eligibility criteria for claiming 80% of FEC funding

  1. Research organisations using the Je-S system must submit their costs through the Je-S system which calculates the 80% FEC figure.
  2. On IFS, only the 80% FEC output should be entered at 100% funding.
  3. Applicants do not need to show the remaining 20% on the finance table.

To find out more see our: Cost Guidance for Academics.

Interested in applying for this competition?

Book an appointment to speak to one of our advisors to discuss your eligibility to apply for this Grant Funding opportunity.