National Materials Innovation Programme: CR&D

The National Materials Innovation Programme collaborative R&D competition, delivered by Innovate UK, funds advanced materials projects across four themes: future healthcare solutions, structural materials innovation, power electronics and connectivity, and metamaterials and metasurfaces. Round 1 carries a GBP 12M pot with individual grant requests between GBP 500K and GBP 1M for projects running 18 to 30 months and starting by 1 February 2027. The lead applicant must be a UK registered business of any size, the project must be collaborative with at least one other funded organisation, and the consortium must include at least one UK registered SME claiming grant funding; no single organisation may claim more than 70 percent of total project costs. Every funded organisation must carry out its project work in the UK, intend to exploit the results in the UK, and spend most of the funding in the UK; the competition opened 1 September 2026 and closes 28 October 2026.