Specific Themes

The Office for Life Science (as part of the Department for Science, Innovation and Technology) has identified some key capability and skills gaps within the medicines manufacturing industry through direct conversations and surveys.

You must explore and address as many of these themes as practically achievable:

• sustainable manufacturing
• regulatory skills
• bioprocessing
• biologics manufacturing
• cell and gene therapy manufacturing
• disruptive technologies
• digital and data
• automation and robotics
• cleanroom operations
• good manufacturing practice (GMP) operations
• quality control and quality assurance (QA/QC)
• equality, diversity and inclusion

This list is not exhaustive and we encourage you to identify other skills requirements within the industry in your project proposal.

Eligibility

Your project must:

• start on 1 April 2024
• end by 31 March 2026
• have a grant funding request of up to £5.3 million
• last between 12 and 24 months
• carry out its project work in the UK
• intend to exploit the results from or in the UK

Projects must always start on the first of the month and this must be stated within your application. Your project start date will be reflected in your grant offer letter if you are successful.

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 or work alone your organisation must be a:

• business of any size
• academic institution
• research and technology organisation (RTO)
• charity
• not for profit
• public sector organisation
• research organisation

To collaborate with the lead, your organisation must be one of the following UK registered:

• business of any size
• academic institution
• charity
• not for profit
• public sector organisation
• research and technology organisation (RTO)
• research organisation

Each partner organisation must be invited into the Innovation Funding Service (IFS) by the lead to collaborate on a project. Once partners have accepted the invitation, they will be asked to login or to create an account in IFS. They are responsible for entering their own project costs in the application.

To be an eligible collaboration, the lead and at least one other organisation must apply for funding when entering their costs into the application.

Non-funded partners

Your project can include UK partners that do not receive any of this competition’s funding. Their costs will count towards the total project costs.

Subcontractors

Subcontractors are allowed in this competition.

Subcontractors can be from anywhere in the UK and you must select them through your usual procurement process.

All subcontractor costs must be justified and appropriate to the total project costs.

Number of applications

A business, academic institution, research organisation, research and technology organisation (RTO), charity, not for profit or public sector organisation can only lead on one application but can be included as a collaborator in two further applications.

If a business academic institution, research organisation, research and technology organisation (RTO), charity, not for profit or public sector organisation is not leading any application, it can collaborate in any number of applications.

You cannot use a previously submitted application to apply for this competition.

Exclusions

Innovate UK are not funding projects that are:

• not related to the medicines manufacturing skills and talent agenda
• building infrastructure

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 £5.3 million has been allocated to fund a centre of excellence (CoE) 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 the purposes of this competition, 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

Research participation

The research organisations undertaking non-economic activity as part of the project can share up to 100% of the total eligible project costs. If your consortium contains more than one research organisation undertaking non-economic activity, this maximum is shared between them.

Of that 100% you could get funding for your eligible project costs of up to:

• 80% of full economic costs (FEC) if you are a Je-S registered institution such as an academic
• 100% of your project costs if you are an RTO, charity, not for profit organisation, public sector organisation or research organisation