New £6.5m grant funding opportunity announced

29 April 2026

To encourage innovation within UK's advanced manufacturing supply chain, Innovate UK has launched a new collaborative research and development (CRD) grant competition which runs from 27 April to 10 June 2026.

This means that UK marine manufacturers and boatbuilders can now potentially apply for a share of up to £6.5 million to undertake collaborative industrial research that would help advanced manufacturing supply chains more productive, resource efficient and resilient. Individual grants will range from £250,000 to £1 million, with projects are expected to run between for projects that run between 12 and 36 months and will end by 30 September 2029..

To lead an application you must be a UK-registered business of any size and partner with at least one other UK-registered organisation. Collaborators can be businesses of any size, academic institutions, charities, public sector or research and technology organisations. No single partner, including the lead, can account for more than 70% of the total eligible project costs.

Projects should:

• Address supply chain productivity, resource efficiency, resilience, or a combination of these
• Apply one theme (from the list below) to at least two of the advanced manufacturing frontier industries, such as advanced materials, batteries, aerospace or automotive.
• Be collaborative industrial research
• Focus on solutions that are either new or not yet widely used
• Include at least one named end user, for example, an Original Equipment Manufacturer (OEM) or Tier 1 supplier, with a defined role in project governance or the work plan

Project themes are:

• Additive manufacturing
• Digital manufacturing and industrial AI
• Measurement, sensing and instrumentation
• Power electronics
• Robotics and intelligent automation

For further details, including how to register for the above please click here .