Innovation in Professional and Financial Services – single applicants

Key Features

UK registered businesses can apply for a share of up to £7 million for projects that develop new products and services within Professional and Financial Services.

Programme:     Innovate UK

Award:     Share of up to £7 million

Opens: 5th Sep 2022

Closes: 9th Nov 2022

! This scheme is now closed

Overview

Innovate UK, part of UK Research and Innovation, will invest up to £7 million in innovation projects. These will be to support the development of new technology enabled service within Professional and Financial Services.

Scope

The aim of this competition is to advance the Professional and Financial Services sectors by supporting them in the creation and adoption of new digitally supported services.

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

  • legal services
  • accountancy and audit
  • insurance
  • open finance innovation
  • financial planning and support for consumers and SME’s
  • financial regulatory compliance and financial crime prevention (such as fraud and anti money laundering)
  • payments and transactions

Your project must include the following:

  • clear consideration of user experience and design
  • consideration of broader, non-technical aspects including ethics, privacy, transparency and regulatory requirements
  • consideration of barriers to adoption within these sectors and approaches to address them
  • quantify how the solution will be exploited

Your project must address innovation in the relevant areas.

Innovate UK want to fund a variety of projects across different technologies, sectors, and supporting excluded or underserved businesses, communities or individuals. Innovate UK call this a portfolio approach.

Specific Themes

Innovate UK are particularly encouraging applications that:

  • are for projects that increase access of the services to underserved or excluded communities, individuals, and businesses
  • cover more than one sector in scope
  • address broad sector wide needs
  • involve collaborations with non-grant funded professional and financial service providers
  • are multidisciplinary and include social science as well as science and engineering

 

Eligibility

Your project must:

  • have a total grant funding request between £50,000 and £200,000
  • start by 1 April 2023
  • last between 6 and 18 months
  • carry out all of its project work in the UK
  • intend to exploit the results from or in the UK

You must only include eligible project costs in your application.

Under current restrictions, this competition will not fund any procurement, commercial, business development or supply chain activity with any Russian or Belarusian entity as lead, partner or subcontractor. This includes any goods or services originating from a Russian or Belarusian source.

To lead a project your organisation must be a UK registered micro, small or medium-sized enterprise (SME)

Academic institutions and research and technology organisations (RTO) cannot lead or work alone.

Subcontractors are allowed in this competition.

You can use a previously submitted application to apply for this competition.

Exclusions

Innovate UK are not funding projects:

  • that are quantum technology development (use of existing quantum technologies in delivery of a service is in scope)
  • that focus on climate finance
  • that focus on development of new cryptocurrencies
  • that focus on green finance
  • that are focused on increasing access to data for professional and financial Services
  • that do not meet the competition eligibility or scope
  • where other Innovate UK funding support is available and more appropriate
  • 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
  • that are 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

Up to £7 million has been allocated to fund innovation projects in this competition. Funding will be in the form of a grant.

If the majority of 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.

For feasibility studies and industrial research projects, you could 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

For experimental development projects which are nearer to market, you could 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

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.