Contracts for Innovation: FOAK26

Key Features

Organisations can apply for a share of £4.3 million, inclusive of VAT, across eight themes to develop a prototype, conduct field testing and demonstrate their solution.

Programme:     Innovate UK

Award:     Share of up to £4.3 million

Opens: 11th May 2026

Closes: 24th Jun 2026

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Grant Overview

Innovate UK are investing a maximum of £4.3 million from the Department for Transport in this Contracts for Innovation competition.

Grant Scope

The aim of this competition is to accelerate and increase the adoption of innovation to improve UK railways. This will be through the DfT’s First of a Kind Programme.

Projects can focus on one or more of the following specific themes.

  • Grow the economy by enhancing the transport network, on time and on budget
    • Challenge 1 – Safe Concurrent High-Speed Rail Installation in Constrained Environments. Stakeholder HS2
    • Challenge 2 – UK Dark Skies – Drone Operations BVLOS – Stakeholder Network Rail
  • Improve transport users’ experience, ensuring that the network is safe, reliable, and inclusive
    • Challenge 3 – Improving Customer Experience in Isolated Spaces. Stakeholders TfL, DLR and Northern Rail Partnership
    • Challenge 4 – Digital Hazard Log. Stakeholders Network Rail, Southern Renewals Enterprise
    • Challenge 5 – Scour Risks to Structures. Stakeholder Network Rail
    • Challenge 6 – Structures: Rapid Behaviour Verification to Support Assessment and Intervention Decisions. Stakeholder Network Rail
  • Reduce environmental impacts by tackling climate change and improving air quality by decarbonising transport
    • Challenge 7 – Green Engineering Solutions for Earthworks Resilience and Biodiversity Net Gain. Stakeholders Network Rail and TfL
    • Challenge 8 – Enhancing Rail Adhesion Through Intelligent Vegetation Management and Biodiversity-Positive Interventions. Stakeholders TfL and Network Rail

Eligibility Criteria

To be eligible for this competition, projects must have total costs of no more than £210,000 (inclusive of VAT). Projects must start by 1st September 2026 and end by 31st March 2027 with projects lasting between 3-7 months.

Applicant: To lead a project, organisations can be based in the EU, EEA or internationally and be an organisation of any size. Contracts will be awarded to a single legal entity only with most of the project work and key deliverables being completed by the applicant and carried out in the UK.

Subcontractors: Subcontractors can be used in this competition, but only for specialist skills.

Integration partners: It is expected that an integration partner is used in your project to help facilitate the demonstration of technology. Integration partners must not be added to the Innovation Funding Service application.

Exclusions

Innovate UK will not fund the following projects:

  • Projects not in the original scope and duplicates someone else’s work
  • Projects that are not likely to be successfully exploited by the rail industry to deliver benefits to rail or light rail organisations and their customers
  • Projects not at Rail Industry Readiness level 5 or above
  • Projects that are unable to deliver a demonstration event and trial within a representative environment, offering potential customers a change to use the innovation and offer feedback
  • Projects that do not include an evaluation and plant to collect information to inform a cost or benefit analysis
  • Projects that directly duplicate other UK Government or EU funded initiatives you have already been funded to deliver
  • Projects that are covered by existing commercial agreements to deliver the proposed solutions

Grant Funding

Innovate UK has allocated up to £4.3 million (inclusive of VAT) to fund innovation projects in this phase 1 feasibility research and development competition. Funding will be in the form of a contract up to £210,000 (inclusive of VAT) for each project up to seven months. Innovate UK expect to fund up to 22 projects.

Value Added Tax (VAT)

You must select whether you are VAT registered before entering your eligible project costs. VAT is the responsibility of the invoicing business.

VAT registered

If you have selected you are VAT registered, eligible project costs must exclusive of VAT must be entered. 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 £210,000.

Not VAT registered

If you have selected that you are not VAT registered, you must enter your eligible project costs exclusive of VAT and no VAT will be added. It will not be possible to increase total project costs to cover VAT later should you become VAT registered. Your total project costs must not exceed £210,000.

Research and development (R&D)

Applications 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:

  • commercial development activities such as quantity production
  • supply to establish commercial viability or to recover R&D costs
  • integration, customisation or incremental adaptations and improvements to existing products or processes

For further information on this competition, please see full details.

Full competition details

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