National Materials Innovation Programme: Feasibility studies Rd 2

Overview

Innovate UK will invest up to £2 million in feasibility studies that accelerate the translation of advanced materials innovations towards industrial adoption.

This is the second round of feasibility funding under the National Materials Innovation Programme. The competition is designed to support collaboration, strengthen the UK materials innovation community and help businesses progress promising materials technologies towards real-world use.

Projects must focus on applied materials science, materials development or novel materials deployment. They should show how the innovation can improve performance, efficiency, competitiveness or environmental outcomes, and must demonstrate a clear end-use application supported by an end user in one of the UK’s IS-8 high growth sectors.

Scope

The aim of this competition is to speed the translation of advanced materials innovations towards industrial adoption in three prioritised high growth themes and one strategic opportunity theme.

Projects must focus on one of the three prioritised high growth opportunity theme areas derived from the National Materials Innovation Strategy or the strategic opportunity theme area: metamaterials and metasurfaces.

Applications must demonstrate how the project helps enable the materials innovation to translate more rapidly to industrial adoption.

Projects must:

• identify the specific sector and applications being targeted
• clearly describe the opportunity for the technology to be applied
• describe any future barriers and challenges to adoption

Projects must also demonstrate how adoption of the materials innovation contributes to broader UK net zero targets. This could include sustainable supply chains and feedstocks, reduction in energy consumption, emissions reduction and resource efficiency.

Applications must upload a signed letter of support from an end user. The end user must operate within one of the eight growth driving sectors identified in the UK’s Modern Industrial Strategy.

Key themes and topics

Projects must focus on one of the following:

High growth opportunity themes

Theme 1. Future healthcare solutions

Material innovation projects are sought for:

• biocompatible materials: this includes the development, characterisation and validation of biocompatible materials with application-specific properties for targeted therapies for medical use
• bioelectronic materials: this includes the development, characterisation and validation for medical use of bioelectronic material solutions that enable systems to directly interface with biological systems, in-vivo or in-vitro, to help prevent, diagnose, monitor and treat disease and to support patient rehabilitation

Theme 2. Sustainable structural systems

Material innovation projects are sought for:

• circularity: this includes circularity in high value structural materials such as speciality grade steels and other performance metals, high performance metallic alloys and fibre reinforced polymer composites
• surface engineering: this includes materials innovations that enable improved performance of surface protection materials and tribological solutions to extend technology, asset or infrastructure lifetime, and control surface or bulk degradation of structural materials in real world conditions
• design and deployment: this includes innovations to improve the predictability, design and deployment of high performance structural materials, enabling enhanced resistance to surface or bulk degradation
• extreme environments: this includes the development and refinement of high performance structural material systems and functional materials for specific extreme and multi-extreme conditions such as thermal and radiation extremes

Theme 3. Power electronics and connectivity

Material innovation projects are sought for:

• wide and ultra-wide bandgap materials: this includes the development and integration of wide and ultra-wide bandgap materials to enable higher temperature and voltage operation over current generation materials
• advanced connectivity: this includes the development of materials innovations for advanced connectivity and communication systems enabling high efficiency in energy, capacity, coverage and spectrum use in communication systems including 5G, 6G, optical, RF, IR and RADAR

Strategic opportunity theme

Theme 4. Metamaterials and metasurfaces

Material innovation projects are sought to enable commercialisation, growth and dual use outcomes of metamaterials and metasurfaces.

Proposals in any of these sub-themes should address relevant aspects of the value chain. This could include demonstrating technology concepts for application and market opportunity, addressing technical barriers or enablers in relevant manufacturing, or design and metrology tools and methods to enable efficient adoption.

• future telecommunications and advanced connectivity: this includes the scaling, commercialisation and application of reconfigurable, intelligent metamaterial and metasurface solutions and related devices and coatings
• convergent electronic-photonic technologies: this includes innovations in metamaterials and metasurfaces to enable integration with semiconductors and photonics
• thermal or mechanical metamaterials: this includes thermal or mechanical metamaterials, at large or small length scales, to enable applications in areas such as robotics and autonomous systems
• energy security and net zero: this includes metamaterials or metasurfaces enabling advances in renewable energy sources and energy storage
• healthcare: this includes metamaterials or metasurfaces enabling advances in healthcare such as biosensors, biomonitoring, imaging, diagnostics, biomedical devices, stimuli-responsive systems, advanced prosthetics or acoustic management in clinical settings

For the purposes of the strategic opportunity theme:

• a metamaterial is a 3D structure with a response or function due to the collective effect of meta-atom elements that is not possible to achieve conventionally with any individual constituent material
• a metasurface is a 2D version of a metamaterial where the structural elements are confined to a 2D plane

Projects will not be funded if they:

• are not described by any of the themes and sub-themes listed in the scope section
• are focused on chemical or raw materials synthesis, rather than adoption of materials innovations in an end application
• are focused on the development of digital tools and technologies to support or enable materials innovation, for example artificial intelligence or machine learning
• are focused solely on the defence sector, although dual use material innovations are eligible where the primary focus is on civil applications
• do not demonstrate a clear and realistic sector and application opportunity for later adoption
• do not provide the required letter of support from an end user
• are dependent on export performance
• are dependent on domestic inputs usage

Project duration

Up to 9 months

Must start by 1 November 2026

End by 31 July 2027

Award value

Grant funding request between £50,000 and £100,000

Funding rates

For feasibility studies, which evaluates a project’s potential by uncovering key factors and informing confident, well-founded decisions about moving forward, applicants can get funding for eligible project costs of:

• up to 70% if you are a micro or small organisation
• up to 60% if you are a medium sized organisation
• up to 50% if you are a large organisation

Research organisations can share up to 30% of the total eligible project costs.

Eligibility criteria

• Lead: UK-registered business (any size). Academic institutions, RTOs, charities, not-for-profits or public sector bodies cannot lead or work alone.
• Collaboration (optional): if collaborative, at least two funded organisations; no single partner >70% of total eligible costs; each partner enters costs in IFS.
• Location: project work carried out in the UK; results exploited from/in the UK.
• Letter of support: required from an end user in an IS-8 sector (PDF, ≤2 pages, on headed paper).
• Subcontractors: allowed; total ≤30% of eligible costs; overseas use requires strong justification and evidence of UK market testing.
• Non-funded partners: permitted (UK/EU/non-UK); their costs count toward total eligible project costs.
• Applications per business: lead on one; collaborate on two more.
• Must comply with subsidy control, sanctions, and animal research welfare standards.