Eligibility

Your project must:

• have a maximum grant funding request of £750,000
• start by 1 July 2024
• end by 30 June 2027
• last between 18 and 36 months

UK project partners must carry out the majority of their project work in the UK and intend to exploit the results from or in the UK.

Your project must demonstrate a balanced technological contribution by the participants from both countries and must be equally significant to all participants.

Note that eligibility on the German counterpart competition also states that in a project with two cooperating partners, no partner may contribute more than 70% of total person months to the project. Person months is the metric for the time in months devoted by staff to a project.

In a project with more than two cooperating partners, no partner may contribute more than 50% of total person months. All research organisations involved in the consortium may altogether not contribute more than 50% of the total person months.

Your application must be in line with the rules of Innovate UK and The Federal Ministry for Economic Affairs and Climate Action (BMWK).

Applications indentified as not eligible by either Innovate UK or BMWK will not be sent for assessment.

Your project 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 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 UK registered business of any size
• be or involve at least one grant claiming UK micro, small or medium-sized enterprise (SME)
• collaborate with at least one German registered SME applying to the German ZIM programme, which must be a separate legal entity, not linked to the UK partners

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

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

Subcontractors are allowed in this competition.

You can use subcontractors from the UK, Germany and other countries but must make the case in your application as to why you could not use suppliers from the countries providing grant funding for the project. All subcontractors must be selected through your usual procurement process.

You must provide a detailed rationale and evidence of the potential UK or German contractors you approached, with the reasons why they were unable to work with you. We will not accept a cheaper cost as a sufficient reason to use a subcontractor from a third country.

All subcontractor costs must be justified and appropriate for the project.

An eligible UK business can lead on one application and collaborate on two further applications.

If an organisation is not leading any application, it can collaborate in up to three applications.

Exclusions

Innovate UK are not funding projects that:

• do not have a genuine collaboration with a German SME who has been successful in the corresponding German ZIM programme
• do not meet Innovate UK’s eligibility criteria

Innovate UK will not fund Quantum-focussed projects that are:

• not covered by any of the four specific themes
• not ‘second generation’ quantum technologies defined as those involving the generation and coherent control of quantum states, resulting in phenomena such as superposition or entanglement
• feasibility studies or projects that are low maturity in their development
• market research, road mapping or landscape studies

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 £4 million from Innovate UK, and a minimum of €4 million from the German BMWK, has been allocated to fund innovation projects in this competition. Funding will be in the form of a grant.

Each country will fund its eligible participants according to their national procedure and funding rules. Funding conditions and eligibility criteria may vary between UK and Germany. The bilateral joint cooperation between the partners and its added value is an important aspect to be considered within the evaluation.

UK Partners

If your UK 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 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