UK-Netherlands Co-Innovation and Testbeds Pilot for Quantum Tech

Overview

UK registered businesses can apply for a share of up to £600,000 for innovative projects in quantum technologies. You must collaborate with a testbed provider in UK or Netherlands, and at least one Netherlands based business partner applying under the equivalent Netherlands Enterprise Agency (RVO) programme.

Innovate UK reserve the right to adjust funding allocations for any of our competitions under exceptional circumstances, for example, in response to changes in policy, portfolio funding considerations, or broader government funding decisions.

Scope

The aim of this competition is to strengthen collaborative research and development (CR&D) through Netherlands based and UK partnerships towards commercialising quantum technologies.

The co-innovation project must focus on development, prototyping and testing of commercial quantum technologies in one or more of the following themes:

Software services or hardware solutions to advance commercial deployment of entanglement based quantum networking.

Quantum computing algorithms, software applications, and services development.
Adoption of quantum sensing for commercial applications in areas such as biosensing, public infrastructure and PNT.

Portfolio approach

Innovate UK want to fund a variety of projects across different technologies, markets, technological maturities and research categories. Innovate UK call this a portfolio approach.

Specific Themes

The co-innovation project must focus on development, prototyping and testing of commercial quantum technologies in one or more of the following themes:

Software services or hardware solutions to advance commercial deployment of entanglement based quantum networking.
Quantum computing algorithms, software applications, and services development.
Adoption of quantum sensing for commercial applications in areas such as biosensing, public infrastructure and PNT.

Eligibility

Your project must:

have a grant funding request of between £150,000 and £300,000 allocated to UK organisations
have a grant funding request of no more than €300,000 allocated to eligible Netherlands based organisations
access a testbed (development platforms) hosted at a UK or Netherlands National Lab, RTO or University to test, benchmark or develop your quantum technology solution or application
start by 1 February 2026
end by 29 February 2028
last between 18 and 24 months

The majority of the project work must be undertaken in the UK and Netherlands. UK project partners must carry out the majority of their project work in the UK and intend to exploit the results from or in the UK.

The consortium must include one business registered in Netherlands as project co-lead that is a separate legal entity and not linked to the UK partners. This is to ensure that projects encourage genuine international collaboration, not internal company research. Linked companies are considered a single entity under the parent company.

Your project must demonstrate a balanced technological contribution by the participants from both countries and must be equally significant to all participants.

No one country or project partner can represent more than 70% of the total project cost.

Your proposal must demonstrate a clear intention to commercially exploit the results of the project domestically or globally.

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 grant funding request or duration falls outside of our eligibility criteria, you must provide justification by email to support@iuk.ukri.org at least 10 working days before the competition closes. Innovate UK 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.

Roles and terminology

The UK based project ‘co-lead’ must be an eligible business organisation registered in the UK. The project lead is responsible for managing the entire project.

The ‘lead applicant’, is the organisation that starts the application on the Innovation Funding Service. This must be a UK organisation.

UK lead organisation

To start an application on the Innovation Funding Service (IFS), your organisation must be a UK registered business of any size.

You must work with at least one Netherlands registered business applying for Netherlands Enterprise Agency (RVO) funding, which must be a separate legal entity from UK partners

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

UK Project team

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

business of any size
academic institution
public sector organisation
research and technology organisation (RTO)

Only UK registered partners must be listed in the Project Partner section of your application on the Innovation Funding Service (IFS). Your Netherlands based partner will not receive any of this UK competition funding. Netherlands based partners will be funded by the RVO programme following a parallel submission and assessment.

Each organisation in your consortium will receive funding from its respective national funding body.

Each UK partner organisation must be invited into the IFS by the lead to collaborate on a project. Once accepted, partners will be asked to login or to create an account and enter their own project costs into the IFS.

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 eligible costs

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.

Netherlands based partners

Netherlands based partners do not need to be invited into Innovate UK’s application on the Innovation Funding Service.

Netherlands based partners will be funded by RVO following a parallel application.

Subcontractors

Subcontractors are allowed in this competition, but they are limited to no more than 20% of the total eligible costs of the UK participation.

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

You can use subcontractors from other countries but must make the case in your application as to why you could not use subcontractors from the countries providing grant funding for the project.

You must provide a detailed rationale, evidence of the potential UK or Netherlands based 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 a subcontractor from a third country.

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

Number of applications

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

A UK business that is not leading an application can collaborate on a maximum of two applications.

Academic institutions, National Labs or RTOs can collaborate in any number of applications subject to the availability of their respective resources and capacities.

If more than one application is submitted with the same UK business as lead, only the first application will be progressed, and any subsequent applications will be deemed ineligible.

If more than two applications are submitted with the same UK business as collaborator, only the first two applications will be progressed, and any subsequent applications will be deemed ineligible

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 cannot use a previously submitted application to apply for this competition.

Exclusions

Innovate UK are not funding projects that are:

market research, road mapping or landscape studies
not covered by any of the three specific themes and not focussed on advancing the commercial use of second generation quantum technologies

Second generation quantum technologies exploit superposition and entanglement phenomena in applications.

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

A minimum of £600,000 has been allocated to fund innovation projects in this competition. This is subject to us receiving a sufficient number of high quality applications. Funding will be in the form of a grant.

Each country will fund its eligible participants according to their national procedure and funding rules. Funding conditions and eligibility criteria may vary between UK and Netherlands. The bilateral joint cooperation between the partners and its added value is an important aspect to be considered within the evaluation.

UK Partners

If your UK registered 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.

For feasibility studies and industrial research projects, you can get funding 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

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 for UK Organisations

The research organisations undertaking non-economic activity as part of the project can share up to 40% 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 40% you can get funding for your eligible project costs of up to:

100% of your eligible project costs if you are an RTO 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

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

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

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