Key Features
Organisations can apply for a share of £2 million, inclusive of VAT, to develop industrial research solutions to strengthen supply chain resilience and onshore critical dual use capabilities.
Programme: Innovate UK
Award: Share of up to £2 million
Opens: 28th Sep 2026
Closes: 4th Nov 2026
Innovate UK alongside the Department for Business, Innovation, Science and Trade with invest up to £2 million in this Contracts for Innovation competition.
The aim of this competition is to accelerate the development of innovative battery technologies that address defence sector challenges. The programme will support the UK civil defence battery sectors by identifying dual use battery technologies and routes for transferring them between sectors.
Projects must cover one of more of the challenge areas as set out by the defence sector. Please see full competition details for more information.
Projects must deliver both of the following specific themes:
To be eligible for this competition you must have total costs of between £20,000 and £50,000 and have all project costs spent before 31st March 2027. Projects must start by 1st January 2027, end by 31st March 2027 and last up to 3 months.
Applicant: To lead a project, you can be an organisation of any size based in the UK, EU. EEA or internationally. You can work alone or with subcontracted skills and expertise of others from business, research organisations, research and technology organisations, charities, social enterprises or voluntary organisations.
Contracts will be awarded to single legal entities only. The majority of the project work and key deliverables must be completed by the applicant and carried out in the UK. The majority of the funding must be spent in the UK.
Subcontractors: Subcontractors can be used, but only for specialist skills.
Innovate UK will not fund the following projects:
Innovate UK are offering up to £2 million inclusive of VAT to fund innovation projects in this phase 1 research and development competition. Funding will be in the form of a contract worth between £20,000 and £50,000. Each project will last up to 3 months and it is expected that Innovate UK will fund up to 40 projects.
The funding for phase 2 may be provided by alternative sources to phase 1.
The contract is completed at the end of phase 1, and the successful organisation is expected to pursue commercialisation of their solution.
Value Added Tax
You must select whether you are VAT registered before entering your eligible project costs.
VAT is the responsibility of the invoicing business. We will not provide any further advice and suggest you seek independent advice from HMRC.
VAT registered
If you select you are VAT registered, you must enter your eligible project costs exclusive of VAT. As part of the application process VAT will be automatically calculated and added to your project cost total. Your total eligible project costs inclusive of VAT must not exceed £50,000.
Not VAT registered
If you select you are not VAT registered, you must enter your eligible project costs exclusive of VAT and no VAT will be added. You will not be able to increase total project costs to cover VAT later should you become VAT registered. Your total project costs must not exceed £50,000.
Research and development
Your application must have at least 50% of the contract value attributed directly and exclusively to R&D services, including solution exploration and design. R&D can also include prototyping and field-testing the product or service. This lets you incorporate the results of your exploration and design and demonstrate that you can produce in quantity to acceptable quality standards.
R&D does not include:
Call 
Back
