Investor Partnerships: Clean Energy and Climate Technologies

Overview

This competiton is to support high-potential, late-stage start-ups working on clean energy and climate innovation. Delivered through the Innovate UK Growth Catalyst, this pilot targets companies between seed and Series A stages that are aiming to scale.

Scope

Your project must focus on technology and innovations that aim to deliver government commitment to clean energy for the UK and accelerating to net zero, helping the UK to prosper from the transition to net zero. This includes solutions and enabling technologies that make a significant contribution to mitigating climate emissions, across heat, power, mobility, manufacturing, materials, agriculture and food production systems.

Key themes and topics

Clean Energy Solutions

Innovations that are low cost, improve energy security and reduce emissions.

For example:

• renewable energy technologies including offshore wind, hydrogen production, distribution and use, nuclear, and fusion
• System flexibility and energy storage including chemical, mechanical, thermal, electrical and digital solutions to help balance supply and demand across a range of durations
• carbon capture, utilisation and storage
• Energy efficiency and electrified heating system solutions for homes and other buildings, including technology to provide live data supporting upgrades

Sustainable Mobility

Technologies that reduce emissions across all forms of mobility.

Including:

• electrification and alternative fuels
• smart, automated, connected & efficient mobility
• decarbonising freight & logistics, and the infrastructure to enable reducing emissions, including bidirectional charging

Sustainable Low-Carbon Materials and Manufacturing

Innovations that foster sustainable growth across industrial processes and supply chains.

Including:

• energy efficiency
• resource efficiency
• circularity
• process optimisation
• fuel switching
• carbon capture
• hydrogen
• translation and scaling of sustainable materials and the application of industrial biotechnology.

Sustainable Agriculture and Food Production Systems

Novel low emission production systems.

Including:

• alternative proteins from diverse sources (e.g. plant, algae, fungi, bacteria, aquatic plants)
• precision and biomass fermentation,
• cultivated meat and new production systems (insects, novel aquaculture).

Technologies which reduce emissions in agriculture.

Including:

• precision & regenerative agriculture
• soil health
• low emission fertilisers
• methane reduction technologies
• controlled environment agriculture and electrification & alternative fuels in agriculture

This is an illustrative list. You must demonstrate how your project aligns to the scope in your application.

Award value and project duration

The eligibility criteria will depend on your research category.

For feasibility studies projects:

• your total project costs must be between £50,000 and £300,000
• the project duration must be between 6 and 12 months

For industrial research projects:

• your total project costs must be between £100,000 and £1 million
• the project duration must be between 6 and 24 months

For experimental development projects:

• your total project costs must be between £250,000 and £2 million
• the project duration must be between 12 and 24 months

Funding rates

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

For experimental development projects, which use existing knowledge to shape and refine new or improved products, processes, or services through prototyping, testing, and validation, not routine upgrades and are nearer to market, you can get funding for your eligible project costs of:

• up to 45% if you are a micro or small organisation
• up to 35% if you are a medium sized organisation

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, you can get funding for your 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

For feasibility studies and industrial research, the aligned investment led by the investor partner must always be at least equal to the grant funding.

The aligned investment led by the investor partner must always be at least twice as much as the grant funding.

Eligibility criteria

This competition is open to single applicants only. To apply your organisation must:

• Projects must be a UK registered micro, small or medium sized business (SME)
• Projects must carry out your project work in the UK
• Projects must intend to exploit the results from or in the UK
• Projects must be invited to apply by your investor partner after they have submitted an expression of interest to Innovate UK
• Projects must have discussed and agreed your proposal with your investor partner before submitting your application
• Subsidy control and state aid rules apply
• Subcontractors must be preferably UK-based with fully justified and appropriate costs