Outlook for Grants – The Impact of the General Election

The calling of the UK General Election, with polling day on the 4^th July is likely cause some disruption to the UK grant funding competition landscape.

The Pre-Election Period (“purdah”)

Business-as-usual in the civil service is interrupted by the pre-election period or “purdah”; this means that from the dissolution of parliament (May 30th) to polling day a period, ministers, civil servants and local authorities have to exercise caution over announcements which may be considered to impact the general election campaign. New grant funding initiatives will likely fall into this category, and we therefore expect a lull in new grant competition announcements.

What does this mean for existing grant funding competitions?

Thankfully, live competitions that have already been announced and open to applicants during this period will continue in accordance with the timings detailed in the competition brief.   We have also seen a few additional grant competitions, that were in the Innovate UK Investment pipeline for release, open in the last week. We are expecting new competition announcements to slow down.

However, as we write, there are still 37 competitions open for applications listed on the Innovate UK website, including the Smart grant, with a deadline for applications of the 24^th July.  The Innovate UK Smart grant is looking to fund micro and SMEs with a game-changing innovation and swift commercialisation potential and is open for applications from any sector.

There is also a range of UK regionally and sector focused competitions, as well as several collaborative R&D grants with Taiwan, Canada, Netherlands and Singapore.

You can find further information on the grant funding that is available for applications now, by clicking the link to our Grant Funding Calls Finder.

Funding Calls

You can also sign up here for our Grant Funding Call Updates which will keep you informed on grant opportunities relevant for your innovation and sector, as they are announced.

Please do get in touch if you would like advice or more information on any of these.