Growth cohorts: next generation low carbon concrete cohort entry

Overview

Innovate UK is investing up to £11.5 million across a two-stage programme to support businesses developing low carbon concrete solutions. This first stage focuses on building a cohort of up to 20 ambitious UK businesses that are already gaining traction and are ready to accelerate growth.

Successful applicants will receive £50,000 alongside tailored, hands-on support to develop a robust innovation and growth plan. This includes access to a dedicated Cohort Manager, investor engagement opportunities, and industry collaboration.

This is a competitive entry stage. Businesses that successfully complete this phase may be invited to apply for further funding in stage two to deliver on their growth plans and scale their solutions to market.

Scope

The aim of this competition is to recruit ambitious businesses to join a Growth Cohort. The Growth Cohort will fund and support businesses to accelerate their ambitions to decarbonise concrete.

The Growth Cohort will work collectively with industry to help remove barriers to adoption, ultimately aiming for a greater number of innovative solutions to secure investment and scale to market.

Projects must:

• be ambitious with solutions to decarbonise concrete that have started to build traction in the construction industry
• be active in the sustainable concrete supply chain
• provide a letter of support from a commercial entity currently operating in the concrete supply chain demonstrating that the idea is considered scalable within the concrete industry
• upload a video in response to the video pitch question in the application

Applicants must consider how their solutions align to the Target Product Profiles (TPPs) linked to the Innovate UK supported Advance Market Commitment

Innovate UK will build a cohort of up to 20 businesses across the sustainable concrete supply chain, with solutions for innovative or next generation low carbon concrete technologies

Key themes and topics

Projects must focus on one or more of the following technologies:

• alternatives to Ordinary Portland Cement (OPC) as a concrete binder, for example, calcined clay or combinations of calcined clay and limestone
• improving the efficiency or optimisation of cement or concrete production, for example kiln efficiency or reducing binder content
• recycling of cement
• additives that reduce the carbon footprint of new concrete structures
• using concrete to sequester carbon, or trap carbon within concrete
• investigating different concrete chemistry for reinforced concrete, if it shows clearly, it can decarbonise concrete
• improving the efficiency of cement and concrete use

Grant funding must be used to access support in areas such as:

• commercialisation planning and manufacturing readiness
• financing strategy and revenue model development
• sales and marketing strategy
• market research, customer validation and testing
• certification, standards compliance and regulatory support
• pilot, trial and demonstration activities
• intellectual property development
• lifecycle assessment (LCA) and environmental product declarations (EPD)
• ESG and impact strategy development
• risk analysis, forecasting and management
• data and scaling insights

Projects will not be funded if they:

• use fresh fly ash or GGBS as principal materials unless reducing their use
• develop alternative fuels for cement production
• focus on aggregates or aggregate replacements
• focus on carbon capture and storage without sequestration in concrete
• replace concrete with alternative materials
• are not original or duplicate existing work

Project duration

6 months

Must start by 1 December 2026

End by 31 May 2027

Award value

Grant funding request of £50,000

Funding rates

100% funded

Eligibility criteria

• Projects must be led by a UK registered business of any size
• This competition is for single applicants only (not collaborative)
• Subcontractors must be preferably UK-based with fully justified and appropriate costs
• All funded project work must be carried out within the UK
• Projects must intend to exploit the results from or in the UK
• This grant is Minimal Financial Assistance (MFA) under De Minimis Regulations.