Grant Directories

The Industrial Energy Transformation Fund (IETF) is designed to help businesses with high energy use, such as energy intensive industries, to cut their energy bills and carbon emissions through investing in energy efficiency and low-carbon technologies.  

The Geovation Accelerator Programme allows the Ordnance Survey and HM Land Registry the opportunity to make it easier for businesses to use their data. The programme aims to help launch and grow innovative solutions to social, environmental and economic challenges that harness the power of data and technology. The programme will provide grant funding of up to £10,000 over 6 months with the opportunity for a further £10,000 of funding to build a product. The programme will also provide a wide range of support services. The programme has two streams: The Geotech stream is the call for any tech company creating location-based products and services; The Proptech stream is run in partnership with HM Land Registry. It supports innovative technology businesses to revolutionise the property industry using property and geospatial data.

The Tech for Good programme was developed in response to the emerging need for charities in the UK to use technology to explore different approaches to delivering better services. Funding of up to £48,000 is available as well as a package of support. This will include this will include collaborative workshops, online learning sessions and training. Projects should address one of the following four core issue areas: Children Survive and Thrive, Global Mental Health Matters, Fighting for Gender Justice, or A Safe Place to Be.

The Knowledge Transfer Partnership (KTP) scheme helps businesses in the UK to innovate and grow. It does this by linking them with an academic or research organisation and a graduate. This enables a business to bring in new skills and the latest academic thinking to deliver a specific, strategic innovation project through a knowledge-based partnership. The scheme can last between 12 and 36 months, depending on what the project is and the needs of the business. A KTP is part-funded by a grant. Applicants will need to contribute to the salary of the Associate who will work with their business, plus the cost of a supervisor who will oversee the scheme. The amount that applicants will need to contribute depends on the scale and length of the project. It will also depend on the size of the company.

Innovation loans are a 2-year pilot programme to broaden the range of innovation finance support available to businesses, so they can access funding at all stages of innovation. Innovation loans of between £100,000 and £1 million are available to UK small or medium-sized enterprises (SME) that want to scale up and grow by developing new or improved products, processes or services.  The loans are available for up to 10 years are accessed through themed competitions that will open for applications via five funding rounds.  A total of £50 million will be available over 2 years to the end of 2020.

The Voctech Impact Fund aims to raise the skills level of the UK workforce through digital solutions for vocational learning. The fund will offer grants of £150,000 plus, for projects up to 18 months long. The emphasis of the project must be on new learning tools which use genuinely innovative methods to raise the skills levels for a significant number of learners.

Grants of up to £3,000 are available to help businesses who already have an environmentally friendly product or service and need help getting it to market. Potential activities that can be funded include the use of marketing and web development agencies, sales agents and trade shows. Grants are open to SMEs across the South East of England (excluding London).