Key Features
UK registered academic institutions, RTOs or Catapults can apply for a share of up to £2 million to fund innovation projects with businesses, not for profits or public sector organisations.
Programme:
Award: Share of up to £2 million
Opens: 12th May 2025
Closes: 2nd Jul 2025
The Innovate UK Accelerated Knowledge Transfer (AKT) scheme will support a Knowledge Base partner, in working with their Business Partner, to deliver a short, rapid and targeted intervention. This intervention will accelerate the evaluation or development of an innovation project or concept, with the potential for a significant impact for the Business Partner.
Projects must be focused on improving treatment, recovery, and harm reduction, prevention for people with drug or alcohol addictions.
The Knowledge Base partner must be eligible to register to participate in the KTP programme but does not have to be registered with KTP.
Each Innovate UK AKT project will establish a new partnership or consolidate an existing collaboration between the Knowledge Base and the Business Partner through knowledge exchange activity.
The application must be submitted by the Knowledge Base partner but will be developed in partnership with the Business Partner. The Knowledge Base will be the sole grant recipient.
If you are a business and do not yet have a relationship with a knowledge base partner, contact your local knowledge base to discuss this opportunity in more detail.
This competition closes at 11am UK time on the deadline stated in this Innovate UK competition brief. We cannot guarantee other government or third party sites will always show the correct competition information.
Describe how your project fits the scope of the competition. If your project is not in scope it will not be eligible for funding.
To demonstrate how your project aligns with the scope of this competition you must:
You must describe:
Your answer can be up to 200 words long.
Projects must be focused on improving treatment, recovery, and harm reduction or prevention for people with drug and or alcohol addiction.
Each Accelerated Knowledge Transfer (AKT) project is a partnership between a:
We use the term ‘business partner’ for businesses, not for profit organisations, social enterprises, public sector organisations, charities or charitable businesses.
The definition Accelerated Knowledge Transfer (AKT) uses for not for profit organisations, charities or charitable business include:
A “charitable business” refers to an organisation which is both a registered company (normally a private company limited by guarantee) and a registered charity (all charities with an income over £5,000 p.a. being required to register with the Charity Commission).
The definition of eligible public sector organisations is:
The following public sector organisations are specifically excluded:
Under current restrictions, this competition will not fund any procurement, commercial, business development or supply chain activity with any Russian or Belarusian entity as lead, partner or subcontractor. This includes any goods or services originating from a Russian or Belarusian source.
Knowledge base partner
The knowledge base partner cannot work alone.
The knowledge base partner must lead the project and must:
The project must start within 6-weeks from the issue date on the Grant Offer Letter (GOL), which includes the recruitment of an associate.
As part of their involvement in the project the knowledge base partner must provide a case study to Innovate UK, using the template provided, upon completion of the project. The provision of the case study is linked to the no subsidy status of this competition.
Business partner
Business partners cannot work alone. They must develop the project with a UK knowledge base who can provide the right skills to meet the knowledge gap within the business.
Innovate UK encourage business partners to approach knowledge bases directly to discuss the suitability of AKT for their specific circumstances.
To collaborate with a knowledge base, the business partner must:
The AKT programme is accessible to any UK registered business. This is normally demonstrated on a public register, such as Companies House or Charity Commission.
The registered name and registration number provided must match the official public register.
UK subsidiary businesses of overseas parent companies are eligible, provided they are individually registered in the UK.
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.
Subcontractors
Subcontractors are not allowed in this competition.
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.
International exploitation
It is expected that the project outcomes will be primarily exploited for the UK’s benefit. The AKT terms and conditions contains clauses pertaining to the exploitation of the outcomes from the project.
research project, but exploits research already completed. During the life of the project new knowledge may be generated. The knowledge base and the business partner, must ensure that that the application complies with UK Export controls.
Innovate UK will not fund:
Projects that focus on:
Accelerated Knowledge Transfer (AKT) is closely related to Innovate UK’s Knowledge Transfer Partnerships programme and shares a number of common elements, AKT does hold it’s own Cost Guidance, please ensure you refer to the AKT4 Cost Guidance.
Find out about the cost of participating in AKT and understand which project costs are eligible for funding.
Contribution from Innovate UK
Innovate UK and their funding partner The Office for Life Sciences, have allocated up to £2 million in this round of the AKT programme, which will contribute towards the total eligible costs of the individual projects.
Eligible costs depend on a number of factors, including:
For full details on what costs you can claim, see the AKT4 Cost Guidance.
Any funding is provided on a no subsidy basis. This means you must publish or make all project outputs openly available on a non-selective basis. If you decide to commercially exploit project outputs, you can only do so with no selective advantage.
There is no upper limit to project costs, but any costs over £35,000 must be met by the Business Partner, but a minimum of 10%.
Project costs allocated to travel, consumables and estates may not exceed a combined mount of £3,500. Costs exceeding this amount must be met by the business partner and listed as part fo their additional Business Partner contribution.
The Business Partner must commit to a minimum 10% cash contribution to the project in addition to resourcing its own project costs. The Knowledge Base is responsible for recovering this.
Guidance on costing projects can be found in the Innovate UK – AKT Cost Guidance document. Applicants should follow the AKT costing model for Knowledge Base Supervisor, Associate and Additional Associate Support costs.
Budget Exclusions
The following are ineligible for grant support:
Travel, Consumables and Estates costs must be claimed excluding VAT. VAT is not eligible to be recovered by the grant.
Additionally, the business partner must fund:
Book an appointment to speak to one of our advisors to discuss your eligibility to apply for this Grant Funding opportunity.
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