CAM Pathfinder: Demonstrate

Key Features

UK registered organisations can apply for a share of up to £20 million for technology focused research and development projects for close to market Connected and Automated Mobility (CAM) solutions. This funding is from UK Government.

Programme:     Innovate UK

Award:     Share of up to £20 million

Opens: 20th Oct 2025

Closes: 17th Dec 2025

Overview

The Connected and Automated Mobility (CAM) Pathfinder programme lays the foundations for an early commercial market. It positions the UK to secure first mover advantage in Europe for the deployment of CAM products and services.

The programme will support the UK CAM sector to accelerate its technological capabilities and demonstrate CAM operations as commercially viable. This programme will focus on high value market segments in the early commercialisation of these technologies, whilst also ensuring these are safe and secure for all.

Scope

The aim of this competition is to support the development of products and Connected and Automated Mobility (CAM) enabling services that prove enhanced capability and unlock clear commercial opportunities in CAM within the UK.

Successful projects will be expected to:

  • reach a technology readiness level where they can be demonstrated and validated in representative environments
  • actively engage with potential customers or operators
  • move toward clear commercial opportunities based on a well defined market understanding

Your proposal must identify a clear market opportunity and an innovative project which exploits it in the UK or internationally.

Your project must:

  • advance and mature the strategic CAM products and services to at least the stage where they can be demonstrated and validated in representative environments
  • use those products and services to engage multiple customers and upstream supply chains to increase the commercial readiness of UK businesses to be a significant part of the global CAM supply chain, realising export potential
  • be led by a business which is a technology developer or an enabling organisation, such as an engineering consultancy or technology service provider, who are directly involved in developing the CAM solution
  • focus on technologies and systems that ultimately enable the operation of No-User-in-Charge (NUiC) platforms
  • develop and show the customer pipeline and commercial potential; this may include other applications in Advanced Driver Assistance Systems (ADAS), Driver Control Assistance Systems (DCAS) and adjacent sectors
  • reach at least TRL of 5 or 6 or MRL of 4 or 5 by the end of the funded project
  • be prepared to showcase its outcomes at a Cenex Expo event

Terminology in your application must comply with the meanings used in BSI Flex 1890 v6.0: 2025-03 Connected and Automated Mobility (CAM), Vocabulary.

Portfolio approach

Innovate UK want to fund a variety of projects across different themes and sub themes, project value, technologies, markets, technological maturities and type of project collaboration. Innovate UK call this a portfolio approach.

If you are applying with different projects across the Enable and Demonstrate competitions we will take into account your capacity to deliver more than one project.

Specific Themes

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

On-vehicle innovations which support early commercial self-driving vehicle opportunities

Vehicle sensors and associated compute systems:

  • camera
  • RADAR
  • LIDAR
  • Inertial Measurement Unit (IMU)
  • Position, Navigation and Timing (PNT) systems

Vehicle control:

  • drive-by-wire systems
  • electronics and hardware integration

Automated Driving Systems:

  • Automated Driving Systems (ADS) software
  • on-board compute systems

Off-vehicle innovations where these are required to enable early commercial self-driving vehicle opportunities

Connectivity and Data:

  • connectivity and cybersecurity
  • data storage, management and sharing
  • mapping services

Development tools including the development and application of Artificial Intelligence (AI) and Machine Learning (ML):

  • model based systems engineering and software development tools
  • virtual tools, models and digital twins

Technical services:

  • verification and validation of virtual tools and processes
  • testing services; physical and virtual
  • safety case development and audit

Your project can include:

  • development and integration of hardware and software components into a functional vehicle platform, system or sub-system
  • validation, verification and testing in relevant, representative or controlled environments to demonstrate technical performance, safety, and reliability
  • manufacturing development and pilot production in relevant environments
  • activities to support safety assurance, cyber security and regulatory preparedness
  • filling specific technology gaps, improved safety or security, reduced costs, improved performance, improved reliability, enabling the scaling-up of product supply or service provision to meet a customer need

Eligibility

Your project must:

  • have a grant funding request of between £500,000 and £2 million
  • last between 9 and 18 months
  • start by 1 June 2026
  • end by 30 November 2027
  • lead to a demonstrator product or CAM enabling service, resulting in new commercial opportunities or securing follow on investment
  • be achieving a Technology Readiness Level (TRL) of five or six or a Manufacturing Readiness Level (MRL) of four or five by completion

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.

As a key component of the dissemination requirements for this competition there will be an opportunity to showcase your project outcomes at the appropriate CENEX Expo. All projects must be prepared for potential selection to represent themselves at this event.

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, 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.

Lead organisation

To lead a collaborative project or work alone, your organisation must be a UK registered business of any size.

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

Academic institutions cannot lead or work alone.

Organisations that are not profit driven or do not have a commercial focus, including Community Interest Companies (CICs) and charities, are not allowed to lead in this competition.

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.

Collaborations that do not meet the ‘effective collaboration’ criteria will remain eligible but will be treated as single applicants during the portfolio review.

To be considered as an effective 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

Effective collaborations consist of separate legal and non-linked entities. An effective collaboration between different organisations will only be considered to be valid if the following criteria apply between those organisations:

  • there is no common shareholder with more than 25% ownership in each of the collaborating businesses
  • there is no common ‘person with significant control’ (as per Companies House definition) in each of the collaborating businesses
  • a ‘person with significant control’ in one collaborating business has a share of no more than 25% ownership of another collaborating business
  • a collaborating RTO has less than 50% ownership of a collaborating business

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. 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 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 an organisation is not leading any application, it can collaborate in up to 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 if it complies with the requirements of this competition.

Exclusions

Innovate UK are not funding projects that are:

  • focussing on trialling an existing CAM technology
  • early stage CAM technology or application feasibility studies
  • primarily intended for air, rail or maritime applications
  • primarily intended for micro goods vehicles, indoor vehicles or military applications
  • developing Advanced Driver Assistance Systems (ADAS) or Driver Control Assistance Systems (DCAS) with no application toward level 4 automation, as defined by SAE J3016
  • installing infrastructure other than to validate the primary product or CAM enabling service being developed in your project

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

£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 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 experimental development projects which are nearer to market, you can get funding 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.

Zenzic industrial contribution

A 3.5% industrial contribution is payable to Zenzic by all partners on grant received.

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.