Innovate UK Smart Grants are paused. Here is what to apply for instead.
A lot of pages, including some of ours until today, still describe Smart as a quarterly, any-sector grant. It has not opened since January 2025. This page says what happened and what is actually open.
Is Innovate UK Smart Grants still open?
Innovate UK Smart Grants are paused and closed to new applications. The last round, Smart grants: November 2024, closed on 22 January 2025, and no round has opened since. UKRI's guidance says Smart grants are closed for new applications while funding is aligned to Innovate UK's new strategic direction, and a DSIT minister told Parliament on 9 December 2025 that the programme has been paused while Innovate UK redesigns its funding programmes. No reopening date has been announced. The named successor is Growth Catalyst, a £130 million scheme combining grants with aligned private investment, restricted to Industrial Strategy growth sectors. As of 21 September 2026 the Innovation Funding Service lists 26 open competitions and none is open to any sector; the only any-sector route is Innovation Loans, which are debt rather than grants. A UK SME with a project that would once have gone to Smart now needs a sector-specific competition or a different route entirely.
What happened to Smart Grants
Smart was Innovate UK's open, any-sector grant: four rounds a year, each open for a few months, for projects “from any area of technology” applied “to any part of the economy”. That description is still accurate, in the past tense. The sequence since is short.
Four Smart rounds run on the Innovation Funding Service: January, April, July and November 2024.
Smart grants: November 2024 (competition 2057, up to £15 million) closes at 11:00am. It is the last Smart round to date.
UKRI’s Smart guidance page changes to: “Smart grants are now closed for new applications as funding is being aligned to Innovate UK’s new strategic direction.”
Written answer to Parliament (UIN 96113): “The Smart grants programme has been paused while Innovate UK redesigns its funding programmes”, pointing to the new £130 million Growth Catalyst scheme.
Innovate UK publishes its strategy, focusing on six Industrial Strategy sectors: advanced manufacturing, clean energy, creative industries, defence, life sciences, and digital and technologies. Smart is not mentioned.
Innovate UK publishes the Smart Grants impact evaluation “final report”, covering 2019–20 to 2024–25, written as a retrospective.
Sources: Innovation Funding Service competition 2057; UKRI Smart innovation funding guidance; parliamentary written question 96113 (answered 9 December 2025); UKRI, “Turning breakthrough ideas into the UK's next industry giants” (19 March 2026); UKRI, Smart Grants impact evaluation final report (14 July 2026). All checked 21 September 2026.
What replaced it: Growth Catalyst
The only successor named by government is Growth Catalyst, a £130 million Innovate UK scheme “focused on scaling innovative businesses in Industrial Strategy growth sectors”. It offers grants alongside aligned private investment and tailored support, and ministers cite a 10:1 record of follow-on investment. It is not a like-for-like replacement: where Smart was open to any sector, Growth Catalyst is limited to the six sectors Innovate UK now prioritises.
It runs in two forms. Investor Partnerships rounds pair a grant with money from a registered investor who has to invite you to apply; Round 2 closed on 3 February 2026 with feasibility grants of £50,000 to £300,000 and development grants up to £2 million. Early Stage: New Innovators offered £25,000 to £50,000, fully funded, to micro and small companies applying for the first time; it last ran from 7 July to 6 August 2025, and no 2026 round is listed on the Innovation Funding Service as of today.
What a UK SME can apply to right now
Every Innovate UK competition open on 21 September 2026 that comes closest to what Smart used to do. None is sector-agnostic, so read the last column first. Dates and amounts are from the Innovation Funding Service and UKRI opportunity pages on that day; check the live competition page before you plan around any of them.
| Competition | Dates | Money | Who it is for |
|---|---|---|---|
| Innovation Loans: Expression of Interest | Opened 6 June 2026, rolling, no deadline | Loans of £100,000 to £5 million at full stage | UK SMEs, single applicants, any sector, late-stage R&D. A loan, not a grant. |
| Battery Innovation: Feasibility Studies Round 3 | 11 September to 2 December 2026, 11:00am | Project costs £70,000 to £500,000; 6 to 18 months; micro and small up to 70% | Battery materials, cell production, pack integration, recycling. |
| Battery Innovation: Concept Development Round 3 | 11 September to 2 December 2026 | Share of up to £25 million across the two battery competitions | Battery-specific, as above. |
| Investor Partnerships: ACT and Semiconductors | 1 September to 14 October 2026 | Industrial research £250,000 to £1 million; experimental development £500,000 to £2 million | Advanced connectivity and semiconductors. You must be invited by a registered investor partner. |
| UK–Singapore Collaborative R&D 2026 | 24 August to 16 December 2026 | Grants £100,000 to £900,000; 24 to 36 months | Digital and frontier technologies, with a Singapore partner. |
| Advanced Manufacturing: Measurement and Sensing Pilot | 26 August to 7 October 2026 | Up to £1 million total | Advanced manufacturing only. |
| Engineering Biology Collaborative R&D: Round 3 | 8 September to 3 November 2026 | Up to £8.5 million total | Engineering biology only. |
| Knowledge Transfer Partnership 2026–27: Round 3 | 13 August to 14 October 2026 | Up to £12.5 million total | Any sector, but led by a university, RTO or Catapult partner. |
Also closing on 30 September 2026: Ultra Long Duration Energy Storage project development studies, Farming Futures automation and robotics round 2, and ADOPT facilitator support grants. None is cross-sector.
If your project does not fit a priority sector
This is the position most former Smart applicants are in, and there is no clean answer. Innovation Loans are the only any-sector Innovate UK route open today: £100,000 to £5 million, for SMEs with late-stage R&D and a credible plan to repay, and an expression of interest is open on a rolling basis. It is debt, which suits a company with revenue in sight and does not suit a pre-revenue one.
The devolved and regional schemes are open to any sector and are where the any-sector money now sits. In Wales, SMART Flexible Innovation Support funds feasibility work for organisations trading in Wales; our SFIS eligibility checker tells you in a minute whether you qualify. Scottish Enterprise and Scottish EDGE cover Scotland, Invest NI covers Northern Ireland, and England's growth hubs vary by region. See our innovation funding guide for the full map, and remember that R&D tax relief is available whatever your sector.
What Smart actually was, for the record
Most guides still quote the pre-2023 parameters. In its final rounds, from January 2024, Smart funded project costs of £100,000 to £500,000 for 6 to 18 month projects, or £100,000 to £1 million for collaborative projects of 19 to 24 months. Micro and small companies could claim up to 70% of feasibility and industrial research costs, but only 45% of experimental development, which is where most projects sat.
Innovate UK never published an official success rate. The “around 15%” figure that circulates, including on our own guide until today, comes from consultancy marketing. Secondary reporting of Innovate UK's own round statistics gives 46 projects funded from 1,645 applications in the round announced in September 2024, and 44 funded from 1,676 assessed in the final round: low single digits. That context matters when deciding whether to chase a successor competition or a regional scheme with better odds.
Questions people ask
Are Innovate UK Smart Grants still open in 2026?
No. The last round, Smart grants: November 2024, closed on 22 January 2025 and no Smart competition has opened since. UKRI’s guidance page states that Smart grants are closed for new applications while funding is aligned to Innovate UK’s new strategic direction. As of 21 September 2026 the Innovation Funding Service lists 26 open competitions and searching it for “smart” returns only the Innovation Loans expression of interest.
Has Smart Grants been cancelled or just paused?
Officially paused. A DSIT minister told Parliament on 9 December 2025 that the programme “has been paused while Innovate UK redesigns its funding programmes” to align with the Industrial Strategy. No official source describes it as cancelled, and none gives a reopening date. Innovate UK did publish a “final” impact evaluation of Smart in July 2026, which reads as a retrospective.
What replaced Innovate UK Smart Grants?
The only successor named officially is Growth Catalyst, a £130 million scheme that combines grants with aligned private investment and tailored support, restricted to Industrial Strategy growth sectors. It runs as Investor Partnerships rounds and an Early Stage: New Innovators strand (£25,000 to £50,000, fully funded, for first-time applicants), which last ran in July to August 2025. Unlike Smart, it is not open to any sector.
What can a UK SME apply to now if its project does not fit a priority sector?
On the Innovation Funding Service, only Innovation Loans are open to any sector, and they are debt of £100,000 to £5 million rather than a grant. Beyond Innovate UK, look at devolved and regional schemes: SMART Flexible Innovation Support in Wales, Scottish Enterprise and Scottish EDGE, Invest NI, and English growth hubs. R&D tax relief remains available whatever the sector.
What did Smart Grants actually fund in its final rounds?
From January 2024 the rounds funded project costs of £100,000 to £500,000 for 6 to 18 month projects, or £100,000 to £1 million for collaborative projects of 19 to 24 months. Micro and small companies could claim up to 70% of feasibility and industrial research costs but only 45% of experimental development. Success rates in the final rounds were in the low single digits: secondary reporting of Innovate UK’s own figures gives 46 projects funded from 1,645 applications in the round announced in September 2024, and 44 funded from 1,676 assessed in the final round.
Every date, amount and quotation on this page was checked against the Innovation Funding Service, ukri.org, gov.uk or the parliamentary record on 21 September 2026. If Smart reopens, or a competition above changes, tell us and we will correct it the same day.
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Innovate UK Smart Grants: the guide, corrected
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Any-sector feasibility funding for organisations in Wales.
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