Contracts for Innovation: Scaling community initiatives in diet and exercise

Overview

This is a Contracts for Innovation competition funded by Innovate UK.

Scope

The aim of the competition is to fund social enterprises with the ability to scale and deliver social impact. Your proposal must address the delivery of community based diet and (or) exercise initiatives and your existing innovation must require further testing and R&D.

In this phase 3 competition you must further develop your existing pre-commercial innovation, deploying, testing and iterating in a real world or representative environment. You must work closely with potential users and customers, conducting the R&D to progress your project toward commercialisation.

In this competition you must:

address one of the three themes
identify a clear route to market, scalability and sustainability for your product or service
have a validated business plan to scale your product or service and plan to scale by at least 25% of current baseline
spend 80% of your allocated funding by 31 March 2026
provide evidence of an existing lead customer who is using your product or service and the plan to increase their uptake
detail a minimum of one and up to four new customers and an implementation plan for each
describe how scaling your innovation addresses critical social challenges
demonstrate a causal link between your business activities and achievement of your declared social impact
describe how all social impact will be measured, evidenced, and reported
outline your commitment to specific social outcomes, clearly identifying beneficiaries related to your social mission
explain how any profits after tax will be distributed so any surpluses are used to achieve positive future social impacts
describe how ongoing collaborations between all members of the project team will develop
have the required ethical approvals, data sharing agreements and contracts in place

You must demonstrate a credible and practical route to market, so your application must include a plan to commercialise your results.

This is a single phase competition.

Specific Themes

Your project can focus on one of the following community based initiatives for:

diet
exercise
combined diet and exercise

Research Categories

Phase 3: Adoption and scaling

This means planned research or critical investigation to gain new knowledge and skills for scaling up existing products, processes or services. The primary objective is to make further technical improvements on products, processes or services that are not substantially set.

You must work closely with the stakeholders to deliver the adoption and scaling up of the products processes or services in environments representative of real life operating conditions.

Eligibility

Your project

Projects must:

start by 1 September 2025
end by 31 August 2026
last up to 12 months
have total costs of between £200,000 and £250,000, inclusive of VAT
spend 80% of awarded funding by 31 March 2026

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 Contract has been approved by Innovate UK.

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.

Applicant

To lead a project, you can:

be an organisation of any size
work alone or with the subcontracted skills and expertise of others from business, research organisations, research and technology organisations, or the third sector (charities, social enterprises and voluntary groups)

As an organisation you must:

be a social enterprise and exist to provide benefits for society
have a stated commitment to social outcomes and identified beneficiaries related to your social mission
have objects in your constitutional documents that protect your social mission
have a policy to distribute a portion of profits after tax, or be open to including one, so any surpluses are used to achieve positive social impacts in the long term

Contracts will be awarded to a single legal entity only. The majority of the project work and key deliverables must be completed by the applicant and be carried out in the UK. Subcontractors can be used, but only for specialist skills.

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.

Exclusions

Innovate UK will not fund projects that:

are not original in scope and duplicates someone else’s work
do not have an existing lead customer
do not have at least one additional new customer engaged
do not plan to scale by at least 25% of your existing baseline of product, process or service
do not demonstrate spending 80% of their requested funding by 31 March 2026
do not have a strong social impact, focus or purpose
do not address one of the three themes
include clinical trials, clinical studies, or fundamental research
require regulatory approval
do not further develop or undertake R&D of existing innovations
do not involve the development of an innovation element to enhance impact
do not involve the commercial viability of an existing service following an initial pilot

Funding Costs

A total of up to £1.8 million inclusive of VAT, is allocated to this competition.

Contracts will be up to £250,000, inclusive of VAT, for each project for up to 12 months. We expect to fund up to six projects.

The total funding available for the competition can change. The funders have the right to apply a portfolio approach.

The contract is completed at the end of the competition and the successful organisation is expected to pursue commercialisation of their solution.

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. 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 £250,000.

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 £250,000.

Research and development (R&D)

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:

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

Innovate UK may revoke our decision to provide funding without notice if government commitment for this initiative is withdrawn.

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