UKRI has announced a new Proof of Concept funding opportunity, offering grants between £100k and £250k (from a total fund of £9 million) to ‘support the commercialisation of research to enable spinouts or social ventures, licencing or other commercialisation pathways’.
Please contact Irene Henning: ih468@bath.ac.uk or June Mercer-Chalmers: chsjdmc@bath.ac.uk from the Technology Transfer Team with any questions, or to discuss your potential project.
Key details of the call
- The University of Bath may only submit two applications, which will be selected through an internal pre-assessment process
- The full economic cost of projects must be between £100k and £250k, and project duration must be between 6 and 9 months
- The call is open to applications from across UKRI’s disciplinary remit
- The call is open to researchers (including PDRAs), and support staff (including technicians, specialists, TT or KE staff)
Institutional Demand Management Process
As last year, UKRI applies institutional caps to this call. The University of Bath may submit two applications, and the Technology Transfer team will run an internal selection process to determine which projects are put forward to UKRI. The selection will be carried out by a panel comprising members of the Technology Transfer team, senior University representatives, and external members with commercial expertise.
We encourage academics with strong and ambitious proposals to apply. To be considered, applicants must complete a mandatory Expression of Interest (EoI) form aligned with the University's Innovation Strategy and UKRI’s assessment criteria.
The EoI form will be available once the call opens on 4 March, and full details will be published by UKRI at that time.
More details and full assessment criteria are listed on UKRI’s Funding finder.
Timeline
The internal selection process and timeline are outlined below:
- 4 March: Full call opens, Internal Expression of Interest (EoI) form now available
- 24 March: Deadline to submit mandatory EoI forms
- 1 April: Outcomes communicated to applicants
Assessment of EoIs
Applicants who are successful at the EoI stage should note that although the UKRI deadline is 13 May 2026, you will be expected to submit the internal ‘Intention to Submit’ form at least one month ahead of this, to allow for the necessary Pre-Award checks and timely submission to the funder.
Applicants who are successful at the EoI stage will be expected to work with the TTO in the development of their bids.
Further information
The UKRI Proof of Concept funding opportunity aims to support and accelerate the development of new or improved technologies, products, processes, and services arising from research activities at eligible UK research organisations.
This funding supports early-to-mid stage commercialisation activities that validate concepts that arose from research, at the pre-licensing or pre-company creation stage (spinouts or social ventures) or any other commercialisation routes. This is to support and enable the commercial application of existing research along varied commercialisation pathways.
Applications are welcomed from across all research disciplines and research councils’ remit (AHRC, BBSRC, EPSRC, ESRC, MRC, NERC and STFC) including cross and multi-disciplinary approaches.
They will support projects that are not eligible for funding applications via existing UKRI funding opportunities or those projects that have been funded by other mechanisms and that now require further de-risking at a larger scale.
If your project is eligible and in scope for live or upcoming UKRI council specific translation, knowledge exchange or commercialisation support via a specific council funding opportunity, you should apply to that council.
This UKRI funding opportunity aims to de-risk the commercialisation of research. This will allow research organisations and their partners to deliver better commercialisation outcomes. These outcomes may include establishing successful university spinouts or social ventures, as well as developing other applicable commercialisation routes that generate societal and economic benefits for the UK
The intended outputs of funded projects should include the development of an appropriate commercialisation proposition and strategy. This might include increasing readiness towards an investable or licensable proposition (or any other applicable commercialisation routes, for example social ventures) after completion of the proof-of-concept project.
Successful applicants and their institutions will need to demonstrate commitment to the adoption of best practices in research commercialisation (including, for example, TenU USIT guides).
For more information on the background of this funding opportunity, go to the Funding finder website.