Battery Innovation Concept Development Round 1

Overview

Innovate UK, part of UK Research and Innovation, is delivering the Battery Innovation Programme on behalf of the Department for Business and Trade. The programme will invest up to £20 million in innovation projects. This is subject to a sufficient number of high quality applications being received.

These projects will be to support the UK battery sector through empowering and increasing the speed of innovation development, supporting local supply chain, encouraging new entrants to the industry, and business growth aiming for future global market competitiveness.

Briefing event will take place on 29/10/25 10.00-11.30pm – register here

Scope

The aim of this competition is to:

accelerate the development and commercialisation of state of the art battery technologies in the UK
support the growth of the UK battery supply chain and related companies
enhance the UK’s competitiveness in the global battery market
demonstrate how battery technologies can meet specific application requirements and drive electrification across diverse sectors

Your project must demonstrate the market demand for a chosen sector and application. The proposal must explain how your innovation can support the industry challenges and remove hurdles and enable UK competitiveness across the battery value chain.

Your proposed solutions can address the entire battery value chain and must consider the financial implications, sustainability targets, environmental impact and regulatory policies. Your proposal can address one or more of the following areas:

raw materials
advanced cell materials
cell design and components
process and manufacturing tools
quality control and diagnostics
testing, simulation and digital tools

You must demonstrate how your technology will address at least one of the following requirements in your target application:

reduce cost, taking into consideration total cost of ownership and the respective supply chain
increase performance parameters
increase safety
increase predictability
reduce environmental impact
supports regulations and standards for the target market

We are particularly interested in funding projects from the groups below:

1. UK equipment manufacturing and process capability for cell and battery production. We encourage projects that will support this by:

increased equipment manufacturing and process capability for advanced production process and new battery technologies
manufacturing process with lower environmental impact, cost and improved yield
enhanced digital capability for optimisation and quality control
developing manufacturing processes that scale efficiently to meet growing demand

2. UK battery reuse, recovery and recycling. We encourage projects that will support this by:

process capability of end-of-life batteries
process capability of cell and batteries manufacturing scrap
high purity black-mass production and processing
waste stream and low value recyclate material processing

3. UK battery sector with localised battery supply chain and industrial resilience. We encourage projects that will support this to:

meet international regulations and standards
exploit technologies to strengthen UK supply chain
develop an end to end bill of process and provenance
develop new technologies and business model to remove barriers for commercialisation
boost sustainability and resilience globally
reduce reliance on critical minerals

For concept development we encourage applications that:

support development and qualification of battery technology supply chains in the UK
prove cell material and component performance at module and pack level

Your project can target performance requirements for at least one of the listed sectors and can support emerging use cases or cross sector applicability, including sector as defence, aerospace and battery energy storage:

automotive sector including on and off-highway vehicles, motorsports and niche automotive
aerospace
battery energy storage systems
rail
maritime
personal mobility

You must clearly demonstrate your understanding of the target sector and industry and market demand covering UK, Europe and global in your application.

Portfolio approach

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

Eligibility

Your project must:

have a grant funding request of between £500,000 and £4 million
last between one and three years
not start before April 2026

Any funded organisation needs to carry out their project work in the UK and must intend to exploit the project results from or in the UK.

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

To lead a collaborative project your organisation must be a UK registered business of any size. The consortium must contain at least one UK registered micro, small or medium sized enterprise (SME) claiming grant funding on this application.

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

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 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 eligible costs

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 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 project costs.

Number of applications

A UK registered business can lead a project and be included as a collaborator on any number of applications.

An academic institution, research and technology organisation (RTO), charity, not for profit or public sector organisation can collaborate on any number of 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 are:

not aligned with the Industrial Strategy
related to electrochemical supercapacitors, hybrid supercapacitors, lead-acid batteries and nickel-metal hydride battery
related to primary batteries (non-rechargeable batteries)
research projects or projects which are academic intensive
business as usual R&D projects
non-collaborative projects
projects with over reliance on subcontracting
aiming to secure funding for capital equipment as a primary focus
not demonstrating considerations of the cost, market, environmental impact, and business requirements of the technology
focussing primarily on physical system integration of battery technologies, for example, into vehicles or energy storage systems

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 £20 million 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.

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.

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.

The balance between your total eligible project costs and the amount of grant awarded must be funded by the organisation receiving the grant.

For concept development 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

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

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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