Key Features
Innovate UK, part of UK Research and Innovation, will work with the Department of Health and Social Care (DHSC) to invest up to £7 million to support the development and adoption of sustainable technologies for the manufacturing of medicines.
Programme: Innovate UK
Award: Share of up to £7 million
Opens: 5th Oct 2026
Closes: 2nd Dec 2026
Innovate UK alongside the Department of Health and Social Care will invest up to £7 million to support the technical development and commercial readiness of sustainable technologies for the manufacturing of medicines.
The aim of this competition is to drive innovation in sustainable medicines manufacturing across three key pillars:
Critical enablers, regulations, standards, measurements, and data requirements must be considered.
Proposals are welcomed from collaborations across different sectors and must address both critical enablers.
and focus on at least one of the following pillars:
To be eligible for this competition your project must have a grant funding request of between £500,000 and £1 million with projects lasting between 9 and 12 months. Projects must start by 1st April 2027 and end by 31st March 2028. Organisations receiving funding must carry out their project work in the UK, with the intended outcomes being exploited in the UK and the funding spent within the UK.
Lead organisation: To lead a collaborative project, organisations must be a UK registered business of any size, research and technology organisation, catapult centre, not for profit, public sector or charity. Consortiums must contain at least one UK registered micro, small or medium enterprise claiming grant funding on this application. If the lead organisation is an RTO it must collaborate with two businesses. Academic institutions cannot lead a project.
Project team: To collaborate with a lead, organisations must be a UK registered business of any size, academic institution, charity, not for profit, public sector, research and technology organisation or catapult centre. Each partner organisation must be invited into the Innovation Funding Service by the project lead. To be an eligible collaboration, the lead and at least one other organisation must request funding. You must explain why you are collaborating and how the collaboration will work. No single organisation can claim more than 70% of the total project cost.
Non-funded partners: Projects can include organisations that do not claim funding for their work on the project. These costs must be covered from their own resources and can include UK, EU and non-UK organisations. Non-UK partners are permitted to carry out project work from within their home counties and exploit results outside the UK.
Subcontractors: Subcontractors are allowed in this competition and can be from anywhere in the UK. Overseas subcontractors can be used but you must state why UK subcontractors could not be used in your application.
Number of applications: An eligible organisation can lead on no more than two applications. Further applications by the same organisation as lead will be made ineligible. If not leading a project, eligible organisations can collaborate in any number of applications.
Previous applications: Previously submitted applications cannot be used in this competition. You can build on previous work, but you must clearly demonstrate additional progress and new activity. Activities that are not currently funded or have previously received funding are not eligible.
Innovate UK will not fund the following projects:
Innovate UK has allocated up to £7 million 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, funding requests must not exceed the limits below. These limits apply even if an organisation normally acts non-economically but for the purpose of this project will be undertaking commercial or economic activity.
The balance between your total eligible project costs and the amount of grant awarded must be funded by the organisation receiving the grant.
For industrial research projects, you can get funding for your eligible project costs of:
For experimental development projects which are nearer to market, you can get funding for your eligible project costs of:
Research participation
The research organisations undertaking non-economic activity as part of the project can share up to 30% 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 30% you can get funding for your eligible project costs of up to:
Eligibility criteria for claiming 80% of FEC funding
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