Key Features
The ATI Programme funds industrial research and investment aid for research infrastructures to make the UK civil aerospace sector more competitive.
Programme: Innovate UK
Award: Share of up to £975 million
Opens: 14th Oct 2025
Closes: 29th Oct 2025
The ATI programme is coordinated and managed by:
All three organisations work in partnership, offering support to deliver a portfolio of projects. Your project must meet the objectives and priorities of the UK Aerospace Technology Strategy, to maintain and grow the UK’s competitive position in civil aerospace.
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.
This is an expression of interest (EoI) competition. You must have a successful application in this competition before you can be invited to apply to the full stage competition.
Your project must have a potential application within the civil aerospace sector. This can include dual use technologies.
Your proposal must align with the UK Aerospace Technology Strategy, Destination Zero and is split into these areas:
Zero Carbon Emission Aircraft Technologies: Zero carbon emission technologies are focused on propulsion and infrastructure development to enable zero carbon tailpipe emissions. This encompasses battery, hydrogen, and fuel cell technologies, much of which are in early stages of development.
Ultra Efficient Aircraft Technologies: Ultra efficient technologies are focused on improving energy efficiency and hence impact CO2 emissions, NOx and noise. Continued development of crucial high value, sustainable, high productivity manufacturing technologies will position the UK to be a first choice location for the industry.
Cross cutting Enabling Technologies: To enable both the zero carbon and ultra efficient opportunities, the UK must develop cross cutting enabling technologies and capabilities for whole aircraft design and analysis. These capabilities should extend to the aircraft lifecycle from design, through manufacture and assembly, operation, and end of life.
Non-CO2 Technologies: Developing technologies and scaling up solutions to reduce the negative effects of non-CO2 emissions. Complimenting and in some instances spanning across the existing Destination Zero roadmaps, it covers three main research areas: fuel characteristics, aircraft technologies, and knowledge data and operations.
If 75% or more of your project costs will progress the Non-CO2 Technology roadmap, you must submit your application in the ATI Outline Stage process. For any enquiries, contact the ATI at competitions@ati.org.uk.
Full stage competition
If you are successful in this EoI competition, you will be invited to apply for the appropriate Research or Capital strand of the next full stage Batch competition of the ATI Programme.
The ATI Programme partners will monitor changes between your phase 1 and phase 2 submissions. Innovate UK will not accept unjustified major changes in the consortium or costs.
If you wish to defer your full stage application to the following Batch, you will need to contact support@iuk.ukri.org within 10 working days of receiving your successful notification.
If you do not wish to submit an application in either of the next Batch competitions, then you will be required to submit a new expression of interest for assessment.
This award has been designed to be provided on a no subsidy basis, as defined in the Subsidy Control Act 2022.
This means to be eligible, the award will not give an economic advantage to one or more organisations, and you must not be acting economically as an organisation within the meaning of the act.
In limited circumstances, EU State aid rules may apply under the Windsor Framework and a ‘No Aid’ award may be given in accordance with the R&D&I Framework.
Your project
Your project must:
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.
Lead organisation
This competition is open to single applicants and collaborations.
To lead a collaborative project or work alone, your organisation must be a UK registered:
You must not act in any way to gain selective commercial or economic advantage from the outputs of this project.
More information on the different types of organisation can be found in our Funding rules.
Your project’s duration must be appropriate and in proportion to the planned objectives and prioritisation within the UK Aerospace Technology Strategy, Destination Zero.
Project team
To collaborate with the lead, your organisation must be one of the following UK registered:
Your organisation must:
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 the IFS. They are responsible for entering their own project costs in the application.
To be an eligible collaboration, the lead and at least one other organisation must:
Non-funded partners
Your project can include organisations who do not claim any funding for their work on the project. Their costs will be covered from their own resources. These can include UK, EU and other non-UK organisations. Non-UK partners are permitted to carry out project work from within their home countries and exploit the results outside the UK.
Where non-funded partners have been invited to the application on IFS, their costs must be entered as £0 in the IFS application and will not count towards the total eligible project costs. You must include their costs in your answer to the finances question of your application.
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. Innovate UK 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.
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.
Innovate UK are not funding projects that are:
Innovate UK cannot fund projects that are:
The ATI Programme has been allocated £975 million from the government for the financial years 2025 to 2026 through 2029 to 2030 to fund innovation projects.
This is subject to a sufficient number of high quality applications being received. Funding will be in the form of a grant.
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.
Your project cannot be a mixture of industrial research and capital infrastructure investment.
The Department for Business and Trade (DBT) know that demand is high for the ATI Programme. To manage this financial pressure, the DBT has applied an overall cap of 60% on project level funding for industrial research projects.
Industrial research projects
The total grant request in your application cannot exceed 60% of the total eligible project costs. This is regardless of the individual partners’ grant claims.
Of that 60%, your funding request must not exceed the limits below. These limits apply even if your organisation normally acts non-economically.
Individual partners that are conducting commercial or economic activities as part of the project, which may include research organisations, can request grant funding of up to:
The total grant funding limit for any individual organisation is £18 million.
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:
Eligibility criteria for claiming 80% of FEC funding
To find out more see our: Cost Guidance for Academics.
Capital infrastructure projects
Your project must focus on the construction or upgrade of research infrastructures that perform economic activities.
Each infrastructure project can request total grant funding of up to £18 million and the total project grant funding must not exceed 50% of the total eligible project costs.
In a collaborative capital infrastructure project between business and research organisations, the research organisations undertaking non-economic activity as part of the project can claim up to 100% of their own costs. However, the total project grant funding must not exceed 50% of the total eligible project costs.
Research organisations and academic institutions acting alone or collaboratively and conducting non-economic activities can claim up to 100% funding, however you must obtain written consent from the DBT prior to submission. Contact Aerospace Technology Institute for ways to contact the DBT. The DBT’s consent to request 100% funding does not guarantee funding and funding would be awarded on a no-subsidy basis.
Your total eligible project costs must be the investment costs in intangible and tangible assets.
If the research infrastructure pursues both economic and non-economic activities, you must:
Access to the research infrastructure for its operation or use must be open to several users without discrimination and be granted on a transparent basis. Users must be charged the market price.
If an organisation has financed at least 10% of the investment costs of the project infrastructure, it can be granted preferential access under more favourable conditions.
The access must be in proportion to the organisation’s contribution to the investment costs and access conditions must be made publicly available.
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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