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

Engineering Biology Collaborative R&D: Round 3

Innovate UK collaborative industrial research grants, funded from UKRI's Engineering Biology Programme, for business-led projects that develop and scale engineering biology platforms, products and services and de-risk adoption of engineering biology technologies with high market potential. Projects must apply engineering biology to health, agriculture and food, chemicals and materials, low carbon fuels, waste and environment, or cross-cutting technology and service development, and involve a named end user. A UK registered business must lead, with at least one grant-claiming SME. Total eligible project costs must be between £750,000 and £2.5 million, and there is a two-stage assessment with an interview.

Apply on the funder’s site

You could get: £750,000 – £2,500,000
Closes in: 16 days left; 3 November
Effort: Heavy; budgets, references, often several stages

Who can apply

The lead must be a UK registered business of any size (academic institutions cannot lead), and the consortium must include at least one UK registered micro, small or medium sized enterprise claiming grant funding
Collaborators can be UK registered businesses, academic institutions, charities, not for profits, public sector organisations or research and technology organisations
The lead and at least one other organisation must request funding, and no single organisation can claim more than 70% of total project costs
Non-funded partners, including EU and other non-UK organisations, are allowed
Subcontractors are limited to 70% of total eligible costs; overseas subcontractors need strong justification
An organisation can lead only one application and collaborate in two more
Projects must involve at least one named end user further down the supply chain with a defined role (government bodies, regulators or academic institutions only with justification; consultancies not accepted)
Total eligible costs must be £750,000 to £2.5 million (requests to go outside this must be justified by email at least 10 working days before closing); projects last 12 to 36 months, start no earlier than 1 April 2027 and end by 31 March 2030
Funded organisations must do the work and spend most of the funding in the UK and exploit the results in the UK
No enterprise can receive more than £3 million grant in the competition; organisations in financial difficulty or with outstanding issues on earlier Innovate UK grants cannot be funded

What it funds

Business-led collaborative industrial research that leads to new engineering biology products, processes or services, or de-risks the adoption of engineering biology technologies with high market potential:

Projects in one or more themes: health; agriculture and food; chemicals and materials; low carbon fuels; waste and environment; cross cutting technology, service development
Technologies where the core innovation is in engineered biological systems, for example 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
Work on translation, validation, scale-up, manufacturing, regulatory progression, product development or commercial deployment, where directly enabled by the engineering biology innovation
Experimental evaluation, prototyping, product or service development planning, demonstrations of utility and effectiveness, and demonstrations of safety or regulatory planning
Eligible project costs, with grant of up to 70% (micro or small), 60% (medium) or 50% (large) of eligible costs for businesses; research organisations doing non-economic work can share up to 30% of total eligible costs, at 100% (RTOs, charities, not for profits, public sector) or 80% of FEC (academic institutions)

applications must evidence that the primary innovation is engineering biology (for example patents, proprietary strains, engineered cell lines or licences), show a validated route to scale in the UK, and include a life cycle assessment and techno-economic assessment. Innovate UK is particularly interested in projects that address well defined scale-up constraints and market-led capability gaps.

What it will not fund

Projects that are not engineering biology focused
Projects not focused 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 focused solely on enabling areas such as regulations and standards, educational resources, behavioural science, policy, skills and relationships
Generic advanced manufacturing projects
Projects dependent on export performance or on domestic inputs usage
Consultancies as the named end user

How to apply

Read the competition brief and Innovate UK's guidance on applying, and watch the briefing recording (14 September 2026) and slides on the competition page
If your total project costs fall outside £750,000 to £2.5 million, email support@iuk.ukri.org with a justification at least 10 working days before the deadline
The lead business starts an application on the Innovation Funding Service and invites each partner, who enters their own project costs and Project Impact answers
Complete the project details, then the unscored questions (location, project themes, animal testing, permits, international collaboration, export licence, Trusted Research and Innovation) and the scored questions on need or challenge, approach and innovation, team and resources, market awareness, outcomes and route to market, wider impacts, project management, risks, added value and costs and value for money (up to 400 words each)
Upload a project plan or Gantt chart and a risk register, plus optional appendices for approach and innovation and team
Complete finances for each organisation (academic institutions upload TRAC costings) and the Project Impact section
Submit by 11am on 3 November 2026
If invited to interview (invites 14 December 2026), send the attendee list (up to six people) and a PowerPoint presentation of no more than 20 slides and 20 minutes by the deadline in the invitation, and optionally a written response to assessor feedback; interviews run 18 to 29 January 2027

attendees must be available on all published interview dates; slots cannot be rescheduled.

Have ready

Project plan or Gantt chart (PDF, up to two A4 pages, no larger than 10MB)
Risk register (PDF, up to two A4 pages, no larger than 10MB)
Optional appendix supporting approach and innovation (PDF, up to two A4 pages)
Optional appendix summarising the main people on the project (PDF, up to two A4 pages)
TRAC costings for academic institutions
Interview presentation slides and attendee list, if invited to interview
Optional written response to assessor feedback (up to two A4 pages), if invited to interview

evidence that the primary innovation is engineering biology, and the life cycle and techno-economic assessments, are given within the application.

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