Innovate UK closed applications to its Createch industrial research competition on Monday 20 July, with a share of up to £10m available for commercial digital platforms, and opened Advanced Connectivity Technologies on Wednesday 15 July, offering up to £500,000 to micro and small businesses against a 9 September deadline1. Neither has been reported by the trade press; both sit on the agency's own competition service.
Innovate UK is the government body that funds business research and development, and it swapped open competitions for a portfolio model in April. The question that change raised for anyone budgeting a year of engineering time was not whether the money would shrink but whether the calendar would hold. Grant applications take six to eight weeks of unpaid work to prepare, and a small company can only run that gamble if it knows roughly when the next window opens.
July says the rhythm holds, at a smaller ticket than the spring. May brought £15m across counter-UAS competitions, meaning defences against uncrewed aerial systems, and Dual-Use Aviation, kit sold to civil and military buyers alike. June added a £27m commitment to offshore-wind innovation. A half-million-pound ceiling aimed at micro businesses is a different instrument from either, and it will not carry a hardware startup through a prototype year. Founders can still time a raise around the calendar, which is what April's change risked taking away.
