About the programme
Smart Grants is Innovate UK's open competition: any sector, any technology, as long as the idea is a genuine step beyond the state of the art and has a credible route to commercial success. It funds the risky middle of R&D that banks won't touch and founders can't bootstrap.
What it funds
- Feasibility studies and industrial research projects
- Salaries, materials, subcontractors and overheads on the project
- Typically 50–70% of eligible project costs, depending on company size and project type
Eligibility highlights
- UK-registered business — the lead must be an SME for most strands
- Project delivers a significant innovation — not incremental improvement
- A credible commercialisation plan with market evidence
- Match funding for your share of the costs
Honest odds: Smart Grants is heavily oversubscribed — success rates in open rounds sit well under 10%. This is exactly the kind of grant where applying blind wastes 60+ hours, and where scoring against the assessor rubric decides everything.
How Fortune helps
- Match: we check your fit against the current round's scope and priorities before you write a word — and suggest better-fitting themed competitions where your odds are higher.
- Tailor: your application is drafted question-by-question against Innovate UK's published assessor criteria, from the profile you already built.
- Win: you review a scored draft, refine, and submit in hours.
Official programme information and live competitions: Innovate UK (UKRI) ↗ · Current funding competitions ↗