GrantRadar

Innovate UK, part of UK Research and Innovation (UKRI)

Engineering Biology Access to Infrastructure Pilot

Innovate UK grants, part of UKRI's Engineering Biology Programme and funded by the Department for Business, Innovation, Science and Trade, to help SMEs take lab-proven engineering biology innovations to pilot or demonstration scale. Projects must be led by a UK registered SME and must include, as a partner or subcontractor, a UK organisation with scale-up and validation facilities, such as a catapult, bio-foundry or contract manufacturing organisation. Projects cost £200,000 to £750,000 in total, run for up to 24 months and must fit one or more themes: health, agriculture and food, chemicals and materials, low carbon fuels, waste and environment, or cross-cutting technology. Businesses get 50-70% of their costs depending on size.

Apply on the funder’s site
You could get
£200,000 – £750,000
Closes in
3 days left
21 October
Effort
Heavy
budgets, references, often several stages

Who can apply

  • The lead (whether working alone or in a collaboration) must be a UK registered micro, small or medium-sized enterprise (SME)
  • Academic institutions cannot lead or work alone
  • Collaborating partners must have the facilities or capabilities to support technology scale-up and validation at scale for engineering biology innovations, and can be UK registered businesses of any size, academic institutions, charities, not for profits, public sector organisations or research and technology organisations (RTOs)
  • Every project must include, as a partner or subcontractor, a UK registered organisation with scale-up and validation facilities
  • In a collaboration the lead and at least one other organisation must request funding
  • Non-funded partners can include UK, EU and other non-UK organisations
  • Subcontractors can be from anywhere in the UK; overseas subcontractors need a detailed case for why UK ones could not be used
  • Funded organisations must carry out the work in the UK, intend to exploit the results in the UK and spend most of the funding in the UK
  • An organisation can lead only one application, and while leading can be a collaborator in two more
  • Projects must have total eligible costs of £200,000 to £750,000, last up to 24 months, start by 1 February 2027 and end by 31 January 2029
  • The innovation must already be proven at lab scale, with evidence of ownership or control of the engineering biology assets (for example patents, proprietary strains, engineered cell lines or licences)
  • Funding is given under the Research, Development and Innovation Streamlined Subsidy Scheme (SC10780); organisations in financial difficulty are not eligible

What it funds

Projects that enable scaling of lab proven engineering biology innovations by:

  • Enabling SMEs to scale innovations to pilot or demonstration scale
  • Facilitating affordable access to specialised UK engineering biology scale-up capabilities in the public and private sectors, such as catapults, bio-foundries and CMOs
  • Validating technical and economic viability of scaling engineering biology innovations in commercially relevant settings
  • Robust validation work packages to demonstrate commercial viability, which may include a techno-economic assessment (TEA) and impact validation
  • Elements of project work that support the scale up of the technology such as validation, manufacturing or regulatory progression, where directly enabled by the underlying engineering biology innovation
  • Technologies including biosensors and diagnostics, biomanufacturing systems, biocatalysis and chemical production, engineered biomaterials, metabolic engineering, nucleotide synthesis, engineered proteins and enzymes, cell and microbe engineering, synthetic biology platforms, gene editing and genome engineering, and AI and computational biology

projects must focus on one or more themes: Health; Agriculture and Food; Chemicals and materials; Low Carbon fuels; Waste and environment; Cross cutting technology, service development.

industrial research projects only. Funding rates: up to 70% of eligible costs for micro or small organisations, 60% for medium, 50% for large. Research organisations doing non-economic work can share up to 50% of total project costs, funded at 100% (RTOs, charities, not for profits, public sector) or 80% of full economic cost (academic institutions). No more than £3 million in grant to any one enterprise in the competition.

What it will not fund

  • Projects that are not engineering biology focused
  • Projects not partnering or subcontracting with a UK registered organisation with the appropriate infrastructure and capabilities to support the transition of engineering biology innovations into industrial scale applications
  • Projects that do not include any pilot scale testing, demonstration or commercial validation activities or work packages
  • Infrastructure expansion or capital purchases
  • Projects not focussed on the competition themes
  • Clinical development of any biologic, vaccine or engineering biology derived small molecule
  • Clinical trials or preclinical evaluation of therapeutics
  • Fundamental research, feasibility studies or discovery based projects
  • Projects dependent on export performance or on domestic inputs usage
  • Organisations in financial difficulty
  • Applicants who have failed to exploit a previously funded project, have an overdue independent accountant's report or failed to comply with grant terms and conditions

How to apply

  1. Read the competition brief and the guidance on applying through the Innovation Funding Service (IFS); optionally watch the 14 September 2026 briefing recording and slides
  2. If your project's total costs fall outside the eligibility criteria, email a justification to support@iuk.ukri.org at least 10 working days before the competition closes
  3. Secure a UK partner or subcontractor with engineering biology scale-up and validation facilities
  4. Start an application on the IFS; the lead invites each partner organisation, who then enter their own project costs and Project Impact answers
  5. Complete the project details (summary 400 words, public description 250 words, scope 400 words)
  6. Answer the application questions: questions 1-7 (location, theme, animal testing, permits, international collaboration, export licence, Trusted Research and Innovation) are not scored; scored questions 8-17 (need, approach and innovation, team, market awareness, outcomes and route to market, business growth impacts, project management, risks, added value, costs and value for money) are up to 400 words each
  7. Complete the finances section (academic institutions use TRAC) and each partner's Project Impact questions
  8. Make sure all sections are complete and partners have accepted the terms, then submit by 11am on 21 October 2026

applications are assessed by three independent assessors with a portfolio approach. Innovate UK suggests up to a 20% chance of success. Applications cannot be transferred between competitions.

Have ready

  • Project plan or Gantt chart (question 14, required): PDF up to two A4 pages, no larger than 10MB
  • Risk register (question 15, required): PDF up to two A4 pages, no larger than 10MB
  • Optional appendix for question 9 (approach and innovation): PDF up to two A4 pages, diagrams and charts allowed
  • Optional appendix for question 10 (team and resources): PDF up to two A4 pages summarising the main people
  • TRAC costing from academic institutions, uploaded to IFS

evidence that the core innovation is engineering biology (for example patents, proprietary strains, engineered cell lines, protected know-how or licences) is required in the application. Projects involving animals provide extra welfare information at project set-up.

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