Innovation in Professional & Financial Services R2 Single

Overview

Innovate UK, part of UK Research and Innovation, will invest up to £5 million in innovation projects. The aim of this will be to advance the Professional and Financial Services sectors by supporting them in the creation and adoption of digital approaches and new digitally supported services.

This competition is split into 2 strands:

Innovation in Professional and Financial Services – single applicants (this strand)
Innovation in Professional and Financial Services – collaboration

Your proposal must show how you will help these sectors:

to deliver better products and services
increase access to these services
make these services more effective for their customers

It is your responsibility to ensure you submit your application to the correct strand for your project. You will not be able to transfer your application and it will not be sent for assessment if it is out of scope.

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.

Specific Themes

Innovate UK are particularly encouraging applications that:

are for projects that increase access to the services by 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 total grant funding request between £50,000 and £200,000
start by 1 April 2024
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 and Belarusian entity as lead, partner or subcontractor. This includes any goods or services originating from a Russian and Belarusian source.

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

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

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

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 could not use suppliers 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. We 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.

A business can apply as the lead for multiple applications across the 2 strands of the competition, but only one successful project will be funded.

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 do not meet the competition eligibility or scope
where other Innovate UK funding support is available and more appropriate

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

Up to £5 million has been allocated across both strands to fund innovation projects in this competition. Funding will be in the form of a grant.

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.

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
up to 50% if you are a large 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
up to 25% if you are a large organisation

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