National Materials Innovation Programme: CR&D Rd1

Overview

Innovate UK will invest up to £12 million in collaborative industrial research projects that accelerate the translation and adoption of advanced materials innovations.

Part of the National Materials Innovation Programme and the UK's Modern Industrial Strategy, this competition is focused on moving promising materials technologies towards practical industrial adoption. Projects should address a significant materials innovation, overcome a clear technical barrier and strengthen the competitiveness, productivity or sustainability of UK industry.

Materials innovation can include improving the functionality of existing materials, developing and deploying new advanced materials, or using existing materials in a novel way to overcome a significant technical challenge.

Projects must align with at least one of four competition themes and an associated sub-theme.

Scope

The aim of the competition is to accelerate the translation and adoption of material innovations through collaborative industrial research. It will support the priority opportunity themes of the National Materials Innovation Strategy, address strategic material opportunities and enhance competitiveness across the eight growth-driving sectors.

Projects must focus on one of the sub-themes within the three prioritised high-growth opportunity theme areas or the strategic opportunity theme of metamaterials and metasurfaces.

Where a material innovation is fundamentally based on metamaterial or metasurface technology, projects must apply under Theme 4: Metamaterials and Metasurfaces.

Projects must explain how the innovation will improve performance, functionality, productivity or sustainability and provide a credible route to commercialisation and deployment.

Projects must also demonstrate how adoption of the materials innovation contributes to broader UK net zero targets. This could include more sustainable supply chains, reduced energy consumption, emissions reductions or improved resource efficiency.

Projects must:

• be collaborative industrial research projects
• focus primarily on the materials innovation
• identify the specific IS-8 sector and applications being targeted
• explain the opportunity for the materials innovation to be applied and describe foreseeable barriers and challenges to adoption
• demonstrate a clear route to scale in the UK
• explain how the project will support business growth and UK advanced manufacturing
• involve at least one named end user operating within one of the eight growth-driving sectors identified in the UK's Modern Industrial Strategy

The named end user must be further downstream in the supply chain and use or directly benefit from the materials innovation. This can include OEMs, Tier 1 suppliers and other organisations.

The end user must have a clear and defined role within project governance or the work plan.

Key themes and topics

Projects must focus on one of the following themes and at least one associated sub-theme:

Theme 1: Future Healthcare Solutions

Advanced materials and material systems for healthcare applications, including materials designed to safely interact with biological systems and improve prevention, diagnosis, monitoring, treatment, rehabilitation or regeneration.

Sub-themes:

• Biocompatible and regenerative materials, including advanced biomaterials, regenerative medicine materials, tissue engineering scaffolds and matrices, bioresorbable and biodegradable materials, materials for tissue repair and wound healing, implantable and medical device materials, targeted therapies and controlled therapeutic delivery
• Bioelectronic materials, including material systems that interface with biological tissues, cells or physiological processes for prevention, diagnosis, monitoring, treatment, restoration of biological function or rehabilitation

Theme 2: Structural Materials Innovation

High-value, high-performance structural materials and material systems where maintaining structural integrity is a critical function.

In-scope material classes include speciality steels, advanced non-ferrous metals and high-performance alloys, fibre-reinforced structural composites, structural and wear-resistant technical ceramics, advanced structural glasses and glass ceramics, advanced concretes and geopolymers, and high-performance structural engineering polymers.

Sub-themes:

• Sustainability
• Surface engineering
• Design and deployment
• Extreme environments

Theme 3: Power Electronics and Connectivity

Advanced electronic, photonic and communication materials and material systems that enable the generation, conversion, transmission, processing, sensing or thermal management of electrical, optical or electromagnetic signals.

Relevant materials can include semiconductor, photonic, optoelectronic, dielectric, electromagnetic and thermal management materials, including silicon carbide (SiC), gallium nitride (GaN), diamond, gallium oxide, integrated photonic materials, RF and microwave materials, low-loss dielectric materials, thermal interface materials and advanced heat-spreading materials.

Sub-themes:

• Wide and ultra wide bandgap materials
• Advanced connectivity materials

Theme 4: Metamaterials and Metasurfaces

Development, scale-up, commercialisation and adoption of metamaterials and metasurfaces, supporting growth, productivity and dual-use opportunities across strategically important sectors.

Projects can address relevant parts of the value chain, including demonstrating technology concepts for market adoption, overcoming technical barriers to scale-up and manufacture, or developing enabling design, metrology and characterisation tools and methods.

Sub-themes:

• Future telecommunications and advanced connectivity
• Convergent electronic-photonic technologies
• Thermal, acoustic and mechanical metamaterials
• Energy security and net zero
• Healthcare

Projects will not be funded if they:

• do not align with the specified themes and sub-themes
• focus on digital tools or technologies such as AI or machine learning to support or enable materials innovation
• do not identify an end user and define their role
• do not demonstrate the targeted IS-8 sector and applications
• do not demonstrate a clear and realistic opportunity for later adoption
• focus on chemical or raw materials synthesis rather than adoption of materials innovations in an end application
• focus solely on defence, although dual-use innovations can qualify where civil applications are the primary focus
• focus on enabling areas such as regulation, educational resources, behavioural science, policy, skills or relationships
• depend on export performance or domestic-input usage as a condition of subsidy

Project duration

18 to 30 months

Must start by 1 February 2027

End by 31 July 2029

Award value

Grant funding request between £500,000 and £1 million

Funding rates

For industrial research projects, purposeful research that builds new knowledge and skills to improve or develop products, processes or services, often through prototypes or system components that validate ideas in realistic settings, organisations can receive funding for eligible project costs of:

• up to 70% for a micro or small organisation
• up to 60% for a medium-sized organisation
• up to 50% for a large organisation

Research organisations undertaking non-economic activity can share up to 30% of the total eligible project costs. Where the consortium includes more than one research organisation, this maximum is shared between them.

Eligibility criteria

• Projects must be collaborative and led by a UK registered business of any size
• Projects must include at least one grant claiming SME
• Collaborators can be a UK registered business of any size; an academic institution; a charity; a not for profit; a public sector organisation; or a research and technology organisation (RTO)
• Subcontractors must be preferably UK-based with fully justified and appropriate costs
• All funded project work must be carried out within the UK
• intend to exploit the results from or in the UK
• Subsidy control and state aid rules apply

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