We have seen many comments recently on both the work involved and the success rates in applying for Innovate UK grants. It seems that there is some concern over the time and expense involved in putting together applications that receive high scores, but subsequently don’t win any funding. The recent announcement of £948m to Innovate … Read more
The much anticipated Spring Statement was a bit of a damp squib as far as grants goes, but this isn’t necessarily a bad thing. With the withdrawal of the £25M Innovate Smart Grant scheme earlier this year, it was expected in some circles that a replacement scheme would be announced, but nothing was forthcoming. The appointment of a new head … Read more
We attended a great event hosted by a grant consultant Mick Merrick based in Hereford last week. It brought together local businesses who have already been awarded grant funding (UKSPF being the main one) but opened their eyes to wider sources of funds. Monika Dabrowska from Innovaction Global covered schemes such as Innovate UK and … Read more
It’s not getting any easier for business owners to access the grant funding that will help develop their businesses and increase UK growth and productivity. With Innovate Smart Grants not happening for 2025 there has been some disquiet and uncertainty about what if anything will replace them. There is some good news in that the … Read more
During recent discussions with the grants community it has become apparent that there are specific sectors and industries that align well with grants. If you take an example such as artificial intelligence, grant funding could be used in many different ways some of which may be less obvious than you might think. The obvious application … Read more
There have been a few changes in the grant funding environment in the UK recently. Nothing on the scale of those seen in the US, but still they present a challenge for grant consultants and businesses alike. Change is a constant theme – take the Local Enterprise Partnerships (LEPs) which by and large disappeared, being … Read more
It is an ongoing topic worldwide with many countries struggling to find growth and productivity improvements and the UK is no exception. Poor historic GDP growth and no improvement in sight means that the new Chancellor is under increasing pressure to produce the goods. A May 2024 government report outlining the decline in innovation will … Read more
Despite the negative headlines around the £40bn increase in taxes with the burden falling on businesses, allied to low growth forecasts and higher interest rates, there are still reasons to be optimistic for ambitious business owners in the UK. Investment in innovation was mooted soon after the election so it was interesting to see things coming to … Read more
According to the latest statistics, there were a total of 1,797 active high growth AI start-ups in the UK, with investments totalling £3.21bn in equity funding in 2022 alone. Another report puts the total number of UK AI start-ups that received funding of $1.5m and over between 2013-2023 at 727. This second metric is important … Read more
Recent figures from a government report show that there has been a 9% drop in the number of UK companies actively innovating, down from 45% in 2018-2020 to 36% in 2020-2022. As always, the detail is important as there are sector and size nuances which we will come back to, but overall this trend coupled … Read more