Grant Directories

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 Knowledge Transfer and Innovation Fund has two main aims: To promote skills development and knowledge transfer in the primary agricultural sector and to deliver on-the-ground improvements in agricultural competitiveness, resource efficiency, environmental performance and sustainability. Funding for skills development will be provided to organisations to deliver vocational training, coaching, workshops, courses and farm visits designed to develop skills and transfer knowledge. Funding for agricultural improvements will be granted to meet the running costs of operational groups made up of different individuals or organisations seeking to implement innovative projects with the aim of supporting partnership formation between farmers, advisers and businesses working on the ground.

Foundation Scotland is one of 48 community foundations across the UK. The Foundation was established to help people and organisations give to good causes effectively and inexpensively, it is able to support registered and non-registered charities. Support generally falls under the broad heading of community benefit. Foundation Scotland is able to fund a wide range of project costs including revenue and capital cost for small projects, start-up, development and expansion grants for social enterprises and community organisations and mixed grant and loan packages to enable established organisations to play a more meaningful role in community regeneration. The Foundation also manages Community Benefit funds for a number of wind farms across Scotland.

The Ambient Assisted Living Joint Programme (AAL JP) is a grants programme that aims to create better condition of life for the older adults and to strengthen the industrial opportunities in Europe through the use of information and communication technology (ICT). The programme supports multi-country projects involving small and medium enterprises (SME), research bodies and user's organizations (representing the older adults).

SMART: SCOTLAND offers funding for research and development projects. From digital media and construction to life and chemical sciences, they support high-risk projects with global ambitions, so far they have provided £25.4 million to projects that have gone on to generate a further £54 million. SMART: SCOTLAND provides discretionary grants to Small to Medium Enterprises (SMEs) based in Scotland. The grant helps enterprises to undertake technical feasibility studies and research and development (R&D) projects with a commercial endpoint.